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DEFCON 19: Bit-squatting: DNS Hijacking Without Exploitation (w speaker)

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Artem Dinaburg's DEF CON 19 talk on bit-squatting, where flipped bits in DRAM cause devices to contact domains that differ by one bit from legitimate ones. He shows how registering such domains can hijack traffic without exploiting any software bug.

HN cites it in ECC memory debates and bit-flip discussions as concrete evidence that memory errors have real security consequences.

10 comments from Hacker News

@sithadmin2021-09 · in “Cosmic Rays Flipping Bits”

There was a good Defcon talk about some security implications of this phenomenon (specifically, DNS squatting) around a decade ago: ▶ this video

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@auganov2017-05 · in “Intel Announces Skylake-X: Bringing 18-Core HCC Silicon to Consumers”

I'm sure all of you who love debating ECC will enjoy this defcon video: ▶ this video "DEFCON 19: Bit-squatting: DNS Hijacking Without Exploitation (w speaker)"

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@hi-v-rocknroll2024-05 · in “Why use ECC? (2015)”

Other references: link (2001) DEF CON 19 - Artem Dinaburg - Bit-squatting DNS Hijacking Without Exploitation (2011) ▶ this video link

@hayst4ck2023-03 · in “Imaging a Hard Drive with Non-ECC Memory – What Could Go Wrong?”

Bit flips are totally real, at scale you will definitely see them on large queries. There was a fun talk at DEFCON on bitsquatting, the process of buying 1 bit off domain names and then accepting all incoming connections. Attacks like rowhammer similarly abuse erroneous bit flips. Supposedly microsoft can detect solar activity based on the number of windows crash logs they receive. DEFCON Talk: ▶ this video link link

@belter2021-07 · in “Single random bit flip causes error in certificate transparency log”

Indeed. See this one for the results of Bit-squatting the Windows Update domains: "DEFCON 19: Bit-squatting: DNS Hijacking Without Exploitation" ▶ this video