The Silence-Eating Wave--A Record of DNS Amplification Attacks (2013-2016)

The Silence-Eating Wave--A Record of DNS Amplification Attacks (2013-2016)

DNS amplification attacks are a technique that exploits the Internet's name resolution capabilities to bombard a target with dozens of inflated responses from a small query. The attacker disguises the source and sends large amounts of data from a third-party server while remaining in the shadows himself. The damage does not end with a simple site outage, but threatens to shake the entire telecommunications infrastructure.

In 2013, sanctions against spammers led to a massive attack that rocked the world. More than 30,000 DNS servers were exploited, with traffic volumes reaching 300 gigabytes per second. The following year, the attack was further accelerated when a time-synchronization mechanism was even used. 2016 saw the emergence of Mirai, which manipulated household devices and combined with the DNS attack, resulted in major services such as Twitter and Netflix being forced to temporarily shut down.

The attack mechanism is simple, but its destructive power is tremendous. Prevention requires shutting down vulnerable servers, taking measures against spoofing, limiting responses, and utilizing outside assistance. Those who support the information network are still fighting this silent destruction.