7 Vulnerabilities in Popular DNS Forwarding Software Open Door to Range of Attacks

Researchers at JSOF have discovered seven distinct spoofing and buffer overflow vulnerabilities associated with DNSMasq, a popular free, open-source piece of software used in networking devices to cache and forward Domain Name System requests. The DNS is often referred to as the “phonebook” of the internet and is used to match URLs (such as www.scmagazine.com) with their corresponding IP address. In a paper released Jan. 19, researchers from JSOF outline three DNS cache poisoning vulnerabilities and another four buffer overflow vulnerabilities they are collectively calling DNSpooq.

“DNS poisoning has long been a problem, [it’s] perhaps one of the most exploited vulnerabilities,” said Dukes.