Finding the real news in today’s media is getting more complicated.

This is extends to tech reporting.

Check these 597 news articles about UK ISP’s sending out warning letters to music file sharers.

Link: all 579 news articles »

Check out these 299 news articles about a DNS flaw that puts every Internet user at risk.

Link: all 299 news articles »

One of these stories is important…

What is DNS? Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System

It turns names like  www.mysitewhatever.com into an ip address example 111.222.121.12

The DNS exploit allows hackers to divert your web traffic to another site without you knowing.

So you may think your on www.mybank.co.uk but you could be invisibly re-directed to a site the hackers set up to capture your data.

Typically your ISP needs to patch/update their own DNS servers as you use these to route your web traffic around the Internet.

So how do you know if you are vulnerable?

Tech Tip:

There is a DNS checker on this site (http://www.doxpara.com/)

Look for this in the right hand side of the page.

or

On this really useful site  (http://www.dnsstuff.com/)

Look for this at the bottom left:

If you find your are vulnerable send an e-mail to you ISP asking when they will patch their DNS servers to protect you.

In the mean time be extra careful. Oh and stop downloading music.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Beta Testing, Consumer Issues, Security Advisories, Tech Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.