One of the first cloud-based secure DNS services was launched today amid intensified concerns about locking down vulnerable Domain Name Service servers.

OpenDNS, which provides a free DNS service for consumers and schools, is offering a subscription-based commercial service for enterprises. Other vendors, such as Nominum, are considering offering secure DNS cloud services, as well.

DNS security has received more attention than ever in the wake of the discovery of a major DNS hole that was revealed by researcher Dan Kaminsky, and was later patched by several vendors. The so-called cache-poisoning flaw could allow an attacker to guess the transaction ID of a Web query and let the attacker hijack queries. Meanwhile, the Internet community has stepped up efforts to adopt the DNSSEC standard for protecting the DNS translation process from being compromised.

"One of the more troubling experiences from the DNS patching effort was realizing how many organizations didn't even know what DNS servers they were using internally. Recursive name servers tend to just 'run themselves,' only getting noticed when they either have to be patched, or when load exceeds some magic query per second level, at which point random things start breaking everywhere," says Kaminsky, who is director of penetration testing for IOActive. "Running DNS out of the cloud isn't a bad way around this -- the data is effectively public anyway, patching is guaranteed, and you know there's capacity to burn."

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