Past Meeting - September 23, 2004

Learn about the Black Ops of DNS

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Abstract

The Domain Name System is a powerful, flexible, and integral part of the Internet. Somewhat analogous to the 411 information service offered throughout American telephone system, DNS' most common use is to translate names -- such as www.blackhat.com -- to addresses -- 216.231.63.34.

But behind this deceptively simple operation lies a complex and interesting system, distributed widely but with a deeply centralized core. Though most commonly used to execute simple translations of the sort mentioned earlier, three aspects of the machinery lend themselves to more creative exploits. By creatively abusing the hierarchic, recursive, and cache-oriented nature of the multi-million-node DNS architecture, we can effect a range of unexpected functionality, including firewall penetration, bidirectional anonymous communication, large scale data transmission, and even "Voice over DNS".

 

Presenter Bio

Dan Kaminsky, also known as Effugas, is a Senior Security Consultant for Avaya's Enterprise Security Practice, where he works on large-scale security infrastructure. Dan's experience includes two years at Cisco Systems designing security infrastructure for large-scale network monitoring systems. He is best known for his work on the ultra-fast port scanner scanrand, part of the "Paketto Keiretsu", a collection of tools that use new and unusual strategies for manipulating TCP/IP networks. He authored the Spoofing and Tunneling chapters for "Hack Proofing Your Network: Second Edition", was a co-author of "Stealing The Network: How To Own The Box", and has delivered presentations at several major industry conferences, including Linuxworld, DefCon, and past Black Hat Briefings. Dan was responsible for the Dynamic Forwarding patch to OpenSSH, integrating the majority of VPN-style functionality into the widely deployed cryptographic toolkit. Finally, he founded the cross-disciplinary DoxPara Research in 1997, seeking to integrate psychological and technological theory to create more effective systems for non-ideal but very real environments in the field. Dan is based in Silicon Valley.