Warning issued over attacks on internet infrastructure

Key parts of the internet infrastructure face large-scale attacks that threaten the global system of web traffic, the internet's address keeper warned Friday.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) declared after an emergency meeting "an ongoing and significant risk" to key parts of the infrastructure that affects the domains on which websites reside.

"They are going after the internet infrastructure itself," ICANN chief technology officer David Conrad told AFP.

"There have been targeted attacks in the past, but nothing like this."

The attacks date back as far as 2017 but have sparked growing concerns from security researchers in recent weeks, which prompted the special meeting of ICANN.

The malicious activity targets the Domain Name System or DNS which routes traffic to intended online destinations.

ICANN specialists and others say these attacks have a potential to snoop on data along the way, sneakily send the traffic elsewhere or enable the attackers to impersonate or "spoof" critical websites.

"There isn't a single tool to address this," Conrad said, as ICANN called for an overall hardening of web defenses.

US authorities issued a similar warning last month about the DNS attacks.

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