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Largest Attack on Root Servers Since 2002

Last week hackers mounted an attack on the internet`s 13 root servers. This has been the largest attack on the DNS system by hackers in the past 5 years. Root servers are target to hacker`s attacks from time to time due to their shear importance in the functioning of the Internet. A root server is a machine that has the software and data needed to locate name servers that contain authoritative data for the top-level domains (eg, root servers know which name servers contain authoritative data for com, net, ch, uk, etc.). The root servers are, in fact, name servers and contain authoritative data for the very top of the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy. Currently, technical specifications limit the number of root servers to 13.

The hackers, who are believed to be from Asia, attacked all 13 DNS servers with requests for IP addresses. The United States Homeland Security department stated it was monitoring the "anomalous" attack on internet traffic. "There is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or our computing systems at this time," the department said in a statement it released.

Paul Levins, the vice-president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management said "It was a significant and concerted attack, but the average internet user would have barely noticed."