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Spammers' Upend DNS

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the cat-and-mouse dept.

Saint Aardvark writes "eWeek reports on the latest trick of spammers: getting around DNS-based lookups. By registering a domain *after* the spam goes out advertising it, they can get around blacklists. However, that causes all sorts of problems for ISPs and anti-spam services. Paul Judge, CTO at Ciphertrust, says "Even in large enterprises, it's becoming very common to see a large spam load cripple the DNS infrastructure.""

3 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. Anti-Spam Legislation Is Only Effective Solution by bigtallmofo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Until they pass a law that makes it completely legal to kill spammers, the spam problem will not go away.

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
  2. That's not the sky falling... by winkydink · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article goes on to say that some anti-spam applications do as many as 30 dns lookups. This is a design problem with the apps, not with DNS. Do less lookups, minimize the problem. I'd venture that after checking with a few of the major blacklists, you've pretty much hit the point of diminishing return in distinguishing spam/ham.

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  3. Auto-register domains by crow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Some anti-spam group should set up a spam filter that looks for domain names, and registers any that it sees that aren't valid. They would point to a web site that politely explains to users how stupid they are for clicking on a link in spam.

    I expect spammers would drop that technique quite quickly if that were done.