Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Syracuse University

DNS Pharming Attack Lab

Overview

DNS (Domain Name System) is the Internet's phone book; it translating hostnames to IP addresses, and vice versa. This translation is through DNS resolution, which happens behind the scene. DNS Pharming attacks manipulate this resolution process in various ways, with an intent to misdirect users to alternative destinations, which are often malicious. The objective of this lab is to understand how such attacks work. Students will first set up and configure a DNS server, and then they will try various DNS Pharming attacks on the target that is also within the lab environment.

Lab Description and Tasks (PDF)

    For instructors: if you prefer to modify the lab description to suit your own courses, you can download the source files (Latex) from here.

Zone Files for DNS Setup

Note: If you choose different IP addresses, you need to modify the above configuration and zone files.

Recommended Time: 2 weeks

Student Feedbacks

To help us understand how effectively this lab has enhanced students' learning in computer security, we asked students to fill out an anonymous survey right after they finish the lab. We started to conduct the survey since 2009. The survey results depicted in the following are aggregate results over several years.