Nervous ISPs replace Chrome as strange consumers of DNS resources
Some network operators like to wear belts and suspenders to keep their services up
Google has rectified the vulnerabilities in the Chromium browser engine that previously caused it to excessively consume DNS root servers. However, ISPs, driven by a misguided sense of resilience, have emerged as a new source of potentially well-intentioned overconsumption of internet resources. During the annual conference of ICANN’s governance org in Bali, Indonesia, ICANN’s Chief Technology Officer presented data from its Identifier Technology Health Indicators (ITHI) research program, which monitors the security, stability, and resilience of the domain name system.
Maud Durand, ICANN’s principal technologist, highlighted the "Chromiods," a flaw in Chrome that led to the browser generating approximately half of all DNS root server traffic in 2020. Over time, Google has addressed this issue, and Chrome's share of DNS root server traffic has decreased significantly. However, ICANN has now identified another source of odd DNS traffic: ISPs that employ multiple DNS servers for every request from their customers.
This practice, described as a "belt and suspenders" approach, is usually unnecessary since a single resolver is typically sufficient. Despite being a good practice to specify primary and secondary DNS resolvers, the ISPs ICANN has identified send DNS requests over IPv4 and IPv6, repeating them within 100 milliseconds for about half of the queries, and again within thirty seconds for approximately 30 percent of queries.
It remains unclear whether this is a bug or a specific behavior. ICANN is investigating the cause and believes that the ISPs involved are not major players. However, the organization is concerned that if this practice becomes widespread or is adopted by large entities, it could have a detrimental impact. ICANN also expresses worry about the increasing concentration of DNS service providers, as the number of DNS resolvers visible to internet users has decreased from almost 250 in 2020 to under 150 today.
ICANN suspects that the number of DNS resolver operators may be shrinking, and the remaining visible resolvers belong to tech giants.
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