dns

GoDaddy offers users one month credit following service outage

GoDaddy customers are being given an apology and one month of free service after grappling with Monday's service snafu.

In an e-mail sent to GoDaddy users, the company's CEO Scott Wagner apologized for the outage that affected Web sites, e-mail availability, and other services.

"We let you down and we know it," the e-mail read. "We take our responsibilities -- and the trust you place in us -- very seriously. I cannot express how sorry I am to those of you who were inconvenienced."

To appease its customers, GoDaddy is kicking in a credit … Read more

How to reset the DNS cache in OS X

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical network that resolves text-based URLs such as "www.cnet.com" to the servers' IP addresses that your computer uses for communication. While loading a single Web page or other Web-based resource, your computer may contact numerous URLs to load different components (a Web page, images on it, an application hosted on it, scripts, etc.), so a robust DNS service is a vital part of having a smooth Internet connection.

Even though a fast DNS service will optimize a connection, redundant queries to it will take time to complete. Therefore, based … Read more

FBI kills DNSChanger network, but how many will be affected?

The FBI today made good on its promise to take down its DNSChanger network. But people who ignored warnings may find themselves unable to get online.

At 12:01 a.m. EDT today, the FBI shut down the DNS servers that had kept computers infected by the DNSChanger malware still able to connect to the Internet, according to the Washington Post.

About five years, a group of hackers who deployed the DNSChanger malware, which modified the DNS settings of infected computers to point to rogue servers. After catching the criminal gang and taking controls of the servers, the FBI converted … Read more

How to detect and fix a machine infected with DNSChanger

On July 9, the FBI will close down a network of DNS servers that many people have been depending on for proper Internet access. These servers were originally a part of a scam where a crime ring of Estonian nationals developed and distributed a malware package called DNSChanger, but which the FBI seized and converted to a legitimate DNS service.

This malware scam has been widespread enough that even third-party companies like Google and Facebook and a number of ISPs like Comcast, COX, Verizon, and AT&T have joined in the effort to help remove it by issuing automatic … Read more

Flame malware network based on shadowy domains, fake names

The mysterious Flame malware used domain names registered with fake names to communicate with infected computers in the Middle East for at least four years, researchers said today.

Someone began creating the 86 domains and more than 24 IP addresses that host the command-and-control (C&C) servers as early as 2008, using fake identities and addresses in Austria and Germany to register them with GoDaddy and others, Roel Schouwenberg, senior researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said in a Web conference with reporters this morning. He speculated that stolen credit cards were used for the transactions.

The IP addresses point to … Read more

Renewed efforts to revert DNSChanger in effect

One of the more widespread malware attacks that has affected Macs, Windows-based PC systems, and even network hardware such as routers is the DNSChanger Trojan, which has also been known as "RSPlug," "Puper," and "Jahlav."

This Trojan was first discovered in 2007, and was able to infect millions of PC systems worldwide. It remained active until 2011 when an FBI sting called Operation Ghost Click resulted in the arrest of an Estonian crime ring and seizure of the rogue DNS network used to maintain the attack.

The DNSChanger malware worked by setting up a … Read more

JotForm says domain suspended by feds

JotForm, a service that lets people create forms on the Web, has been suspended by the U.S. Secret Service as a result of content a user posted online, according to the co-founder of the company that created JotForm.

But by this afternoon there were signs that the matter was being corrected, Aytekin Tank, who co-founded JotForm creator Interlogy Internet Technology, told CNET.

"Although it is still not propagated, our DNS (Domain Name System) for Jotform.com started pointing back to the correct names. They have not notified us but it looks like they might have lifted the suspension,&… Read more

Google Public DNS prevails as the world's largest service

Handling more than 70 billion domain name system (DNS) requests each day, Google is now the largest public DNS service on earth, the Web giant announced today.

"We launched Google Public DNS in December 2009 to help make the web faster for everyone," software engineer for Google Public DNS Jeremy K. Chen said in a statement. "Today, we're no longer an experimental service."

According to Chen, the way DNS works is it acts like the phone book of the Internet. "If you had to look up hundreds or thousands of phone numbers every day,&… Read more

Operation Ghost Click DNS servers to shut down in March

One of the more widespread malware efforts over the past few years was the DNSChanger scam, which installed a Trojan horse that would change the DNS server settings on affected computers to divert traffic to rogue servers.

The DNS system is essentially the Internet's phone book that allows your computer to resolve a URL to the IP address of the server that hosts its contents. By changing a computer so that it uses a rogue DNS server, the DNSChanger malware was thus able to redirect valid URLs (such as those for banking institutions) to malicious Web sites in order … Read more