Slashdot Mirror
Hackers Compromise ICANN, Access Zone File Data System
Trailrunner7 writes with this news from ThreatPost: Unknown hackers were able to compromise vital systems belonging to ICANN, the organization that manages the global top-level domain system, and had access to the system that manages the files with data on resolving specific domain names. The attack apparently took place in November and ICANN officials discovered it earlier this month. The intrusion started with a spear phishing campaign that targeted ICANN staffers and the email credentials of several staff members were compromised. The attackers then were able to gain access to the Centralized Zone Data System, the system that allows people to manage zone files. The zone files contain quite bit of valuable information, including domain names, the name server names associated with those domains and the IP addresses for the name servers. ICANN officials said they are notifying any users whose zone data might have been compromised." (Here's ICANN's public note on the compromise.)
Any employee dumb enough to fall for a phish should be fired.
The messages were *targeted* they appeared to come from real people within the company. If your PM sent you a word doc detailing a new project proposal and you opened it should YOU be fired?
SMTP email is a failed experiment causing untold damage to millions of users around the world.
...it is about publishing them. You can request a free account and download the current zone file for the root dns.
Verisign also provides this service for free for .COM and .NET, CZDS is just a centralized place so you can get the zones for all the new gTLDs without requesting accounts at 500 registries.
This hack, while bad, doesn't directly affect the root dns system.