Bugtraq mailing list archives

Re: Has anyone implemented "double forward DNS"?


From: Glynn Clements <glynn () gclements plus com>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 01:25:46 +0100


Duncan Simpson wrote:

Double reverse DNS, which checks the name found using reverse DNS matches the 
IP adrdess enquired about is now common. I was wondering wether about has 
applied the same technique to forward DNS queries too.

The idea here is that a client that finds www.example.com is 192.168.3.42 does 
not trist this infiormation. Instead it looks up 42.3.168.192.in-addr.arpa and 
checks for a PTR record saying www.example.com. If one is not found then the 
result is disinformation and should not be used. Of course if the bad guy also 
controls the client's information about the reverse zone it still loses.

The major problem I can see is that there might that hosts in ISP's 
dynamically allocated address pools might all fail double forward DNS checks. 
OTOH if you were expecting your bank or a CA's server that might count as a 
feature :-)

The major problem I can see is that it's not at all uncommon to have
dozens or even hundreds of hostnames all resolve to a single IP
address belonging to a shared server. Requesting a PTR record for that
IP address typically isn't going to give you the hostname you started
with.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn () gclements plus com>


Current thread: