DNS amplification attacks increase by 1,000% since 2018

From brica.de

Researchers said a new defense system is fueling a wave of DNS amplification attacks.

Researchers from cybersecurity firm Nexusguard said they saw a 1000% increase in DNS amplification attacks in the last three months.

In their “Q2 2019 Threat Report”, Nexusguard analysts Tony Miu, Ricky Yeung and Dominic Li attributed the huge spike in attacks to the widespread adoption of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC).

The US Office of Management and Budget recently released a mandate requiring government domains to deploy DNSSEC as a protection against forged or manipulated DNS data.

“Although the adoption of DNSSEC is gaining wider acceptance as the patch for fixing DNS cache poisoning, it is now causing a new set of problems for organizations and service providers,” said Juniman Kasman, chief technology officer for Nexusguard.

“Due to the long responses they generate, attackers often abuse DNSSEC to launch amplification attacks that clog victim networks and hosts, which will remain a significant threat in the future,” Kasman said.

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