Significant internet disruption possible with novel DNS bug

Attacks exploiting the critical Domain Name System Security Extensions vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-50387 and dubbed "KeyTrap," could be deployed against systems leveraging DNSSEC-validating DNS resolvers and facilitate a massive disruption of the internet, SecurityWeek reports. While DNSSEC defends against DNS request poisoning or manipulation, threat actors could leverage KeyTrap to trigger exhaust CPU resources and disable a major portion of the internet, according to a study by researchers at Germany's ATHENE National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity. "Exploitation of this attack would have severe consequences for any application using the Internet including unavailability of technologies such as web-browsing, e-mail, and instant messaging. With KeyTrap, an attacker could completely disable large parts of the worldwide Internet," said researchers, who added that addressing KeyTrap attacks requires a rethinking of DNSSEC's design. Such an issue has also been acknowledged by Google. "We are aware of this vulnerability and rolled out a fix in coordination with the reporting researchers. There is no evidence of exploitation and no action required by users at this time," Google added.