DNS was created in the early days of the Internet, when the only parties connected to it were universities and research centers.
This is possible because DNS servers use UDP instead of TCP, and because currently there is no verification for DNS information. Attackers can poison DNS caches by impersonating DNS nameservers, making a request to a DNS resolver, and then forging the reply when the DNS resolver queries a nameserver.DNS cache poisoning is the act of entering false information into a DNS cache, so that DNS queries return an incorrect response and users are directed to the wrong websites.This lack of privacy has a huge impact on security and, in some cases, human rights if DNS queries are not private, then it becomes easier for governments to censor the Internet and for attackers to stalk users’ online behavior.ĭNS over TLS and DNS over HTTPS are two standards developed for encrypting plaintext DNS traffic in order to prevent malicious parties, advertisers, ISPs, and others from being able to interpret the data. Even if a website uses HTTPS, the DNS query required to navigate to that website is exposed.
By default, DNS queries and responses are sent in plaintext (via UDP), which means they can be read by networks, ISPs, or anybody able to monitor transmissions.
DNS is the phonebook of the Internet DNS resolvers translate human-readable domain names into machine-readable IP addresses.