New trojan in mass DNS hijack

December 6, 2008 – 12:34 PM

Researchers have identified a new trojan that can tamper with a wide array of devices on a local network, an exploit that sends them to impostor websites even if they are hardened machines that are fully patched or run non-Windows operating systems.

The malware is a new variant of the DNSChanger, a trojan that has long been known to change the domain name system settings of PCs and Macs alike. According to researchers with anti-virus provider McAfee’s Avert Labs, the update allows a single infected machine to pollute the DNS settings of potentially hundreds of other devices running on the same local area network by undermining its dynamic host configuration protocol, or DHCP, which dynamically allocates IP addresses.

“Systems that are not infected with the malware can still have the payload of communicating with the rogue DNS servers delivered to them,” McAfee’s Craig Schmugar writes here of the new variant. “This is achieved without exploiting any security vulnerability.”

Source:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/05/new_dnschanger_hijacks/