Good news

Security experts say that the latest demonstration of the Internet's resilience points to a rosy future for all things IP. That's because the DNS -- which is critical to the routing of all information on the Internet -- has proven itself against many and varied attacks over the years.

Since the 2002 root server attack, some root server operators have rolled out a technique called Anycast to copy information to multiple computers around the world.

"The name servers are more resilient to this type of attack today then they were five years ago," Bellovin says. "It's not that any given server is more resilient; it's that the structure as a whole is more resilient because they are using Anycast servers. There are a lot more servers out there, so the attackers might not get all of them."

The failure of the latest attack shows how hard it is for a hacker to bring down the DNS.

"It seems unlikely that someone can take down all the root servers," says Scott Perry, founder of DNSstuff.com, which provides DNS tools to IT professionals. "While there are 13 root servers, these servers are mirrored so that over 100 servers handle the queries that go to the root server. Each of the root servers has one IP address, but in some cases those IP addresses are anycast to as many as 40 different computers. Because of that, when an attack like this occurs...it will only affect users near one location."

Attacks like these are no reason for corporations to hold off on migrating key applications such as voice to the Internet, experts say.

"The threats for something like VoIP are more within the enterprise than within the Internet infrastructure," Bellovin says. "You're much more likely to have a virulent infection that takes you out than a root server attack...There are more problems near the edges of the Internet than in the infrastructure."