Al Jazeera taken offline with DNS attack
Websites of broadcaster Al Jazeera were offline last night as the media outlet continued to suffered from an attack against Domain Name System (DNS) servers.
Al Jazeera's main website was also defaced at one point, according to a screenshot captured by Zone-H.org, which tracks website vandalism. A group calling itself Al-Rashedon claimed responsibility, displaying a Syrian flag and large red stamp reading "Hack."
Babar Mustafa, a senior software engineer with Al Jazeera, said that "DNS poisoning issues are being resolved by our provider." ISPs often provide DNS services to their customers. Tampering with DNS settings can be particularly harmful, since users can be redirected to a fake website even though a correct domain name has been typed into a web browser. The type of attack is know as DNS "poisoning."
