What Is DNS Hijacking? – Most Common Stratagem of Cybercriminals

Last updated: July 12, 2023 Reading time: 5 minutes
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DNS Hijacking

DNS Hijacking, also termed DNS Redirecting or DNS Poisoning, is a stratagem cyber pillagers use. They trample upon a computer’s IP settings on the Internet to block access, restrict, and censor content.

By overriding a computer’s IP settings, the hijacker directs it to a rogue DNS server instead of the user-friendly domain names. This can also be achieved by monitoring and probing directly into the traffic at imperative routing spots.

The Great Firewall of China, which the government uses to achieve Internet censorship in China, is the biggest example of DNS hijacking.

What is DNS

Domain Name Service is abbreviated as DNS. It is an Internet service that translates URLs such as Google.com to an IP address 8.8.8.8. Every website has an IP address linked to its URL via DNS. The DNS server holds a record of the IP address of every website along with the corresponding URL. Here, the URL depicts the name and the IP address, just like a phone book holding records of the enlisted people with their addresses.