
Detecting DNS Root Manipulation

I am a research engineer in the R&D department at RIPE NCC. I am interested in internet measurements, internet outages, data analysis, and cybersecurity. Prior to joining RIPE NCC, I defended my Ph.D. in cyber-security at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), The Netherlands.
In 2021, reports emerged that hosts in Mexico were unable to reach whatsapp.net. It was determined that middleboxes were to blame, intercepting the queries to the root instance hosted in China and sending a bogus reply. This article investigates the prevalence of middleboxes using RIPE Atlas probes.