A zero-day vulnerability is the suspected cause of BIND 9 DNS server crashes occurring across the web.
BIND 9 is the most widely used DNS server on the internet, meaning the flaw could have a massive impact.
"Organisations across the internet reported crashes interrupting service on BIND 9 nameservers performing recursive queries... An as-yet unidentified network event caused BIND 9 resolvers to cache an invalid record, subsequent queries for which could crash the resolvers with an assertion failure," the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) said in an advisory.
"ISC is working on determining the ultimate cause by which a record with this particular inconsistency is cached."
ISC, which manages the BIND software, has issued patches to prevent servers from crashing.
"At this time we are making available a patch which makes named recover gracefully from the inconsistency, preventing the abnormal exit," it added.
Security intelligence firm Rapid7 said the first attack was discovered at The National Weather Service, with the following 89 discoveries of the attack on US universities.
"Bind 9 is the most widely used DNS server on the internet today Gone unchecked, this attack could potentially affect nearly the entire internet," said Matt Barrett, senior solutions architect at Rapid7.
"A temporary patch has already been released, but we encourage everyone to submit packet-capture from their own systems to ISC so they can further investigate. As with any attack, the more information gathered, the better we'll be."
-
Trump's AI executive order could leave US in a 'regulatory vacuum'News Citing a "patchwork of 50 different regulatory regimes" and "ideological bias", President Trump wants rules to be set at a federal level
-
TPUs: Google's home advantageITPro Podcast How does TPU v7 stack up against Nvidia's latest chips – and can Google scale AI using only its own supply?
-
Security experts claim the CVE Program isn’t up to scratch anymore — inaccurate scores and lengthy delays mean the system needs updatedNews CVE data is vital in combating emerging threats, yet inaccurate ratings and lengthy wait times are placing enterprises at risk
-
IBM AIX users urged to patch immediately as researchers sound alarm on critical flawsNews Network administrators should patch the four IBM AIX flaws as soon as possible
-
Critical Dell Storage Manager flaws could let hackers access sensitive data – patch nowNews A trio of flaws in Dell Storage Manager has prompted a customer alert
-
Flaw in Lenovo’s customer service AI chatbot could let hackers run malicious code, breach networksNews Hackers abusing the Lenovo flaw could inject malicious code with just a single prompt
-
Industry welcomes the NCSC’s new Vulnerability Research Initiative – but does it go far enough?News The cybersecurity agency will work with external researchers to uncover potential security holes in hardware and software
-
Hackers are targeting Ivanti VPN users again – here’s what you need to knowNews Ivanti has re-patched a security flaw in its Connect Secure VPN appliances that's been exploited by a China-linked espionage group since at least the middle of March.
-
Broadcom issues urgent alert over three VMware zero-daysNews The firm says it has information to suggest all three are being exploited in the wild
-
Nakivo backup flaw still present on some systems months after firms’ ‘silent patch’, researchers claimNews Over 200 vulnerable Nakivo backup instances have been identified months after the firm silently patched a security flaw.
