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November 11, 2002 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — One of the Internet?s 13 root DNS servers was moved by operator VeriSign last week, shortly after an attack orchestrated against the servers.
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The move came more than a week after hackers conducted a distributed denial of service attack against the servers, causing a temporary, but noticeable, slowdown in Internet performance.
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VeriSign, which runs two of the 13 DNS servers, says the timing of the move was a coincidence, and that the measure had already been scheduled as part of a general program designed to reduce security risks.
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As part of the program, says VeriSign, the company has moved one machine, the J root server, to a new undisclosed physical and virtual location. The server had previously been located in the same building, and on the same subnet, as its companion the A root server.
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VeriSign said it had requested the move in a proposal made in August to ICANN, which had recommended the server be moved a year ago in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
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According to VeriSign, Matrix NetSystems? original report that both of VeriSign?s root servers had been severely affected by the attacks was incorrect. Matrix updated its results, saying that its method of measuring uptime used ICMP packets similar to those used to flood the servers. VeriSign had filtered this data in order to stop the attacks, which made it look, to Matrix, that the servers were down.
