On 6 February this year, there was a major cyberattack on the backbone of the Internet—the 13 computers, known as root servers, which comprise the Domain Name System (DNS).

The DNS is responsible for the naming and routing of Internet traffic and so is critical for the survival of the Internet. The attack was in the form of a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS), which means sending a lot of traffic requests to flood the servers so that they either crash or under-perform.

The DDOS attack targeted six of the 13 computers, although it did not cripple the DNS system. It hit two of the most sensitive computers—those located at the US department of defence in Ohio and the Internet Centre for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) facility in Los Angeles.

This is the second such attack on the DNS, the first being in October 2002 when all the 13 computers were targeted and Internet traffic was affected for five hours.

Now, ICANN has come out with the report on the recent attack, and it has mentioned that the non-implementation of the Anycast load balancing technology was responsible for those two servers being affected.

The media has not paid too much attention to the attack, but policymakers have been more responsive. A Pentagon official even suggested the US could launch a counter-cyberattack, or bomb the attacking source.

This is quite a change from the past, when nations were less prone to treat cyberattacks on par with terrorist attacks.

The incident once again highlights concerns that cyberattacks could cripple global communications and an economy heavily dependent on the Internet. Today, both businesses and individual users use the Internet a lot. But more striking is the sheer interdependence of the Internet for the functioning of the critical infrastructure that supports global telecommunications, transportation systems, financial systems and energy supplies.

These are completely undertaken on the Internet and so nations have defined critical information infrastructure policies (CIIP’s) to address all issues related to their functioning.

Although each of these CIIPs has clearly outlined the national readiness and response strategies for addressing cyberattacks, there is no clear defined policy for a global response, considering the fact most of the cyberattacks have a transnational dimension.

At the same time, different nations are at different levels of network protection. The fact remains that not all nations are thinking alike on the implications of these cyberattacks, when cybernetworks are becoming a hotbed for terrorists and organized syndicates for communicating as well as for launching attacks.

Not very long ago, there have been voices raised across many parts of the world about the need for democratic control of the DNS network, which is presently being managed by ICANN under an MoU with the US department of commerce. In the efforts at arriving at some Internet governance mechanisms undertaken at the initiative of the UN over the past four years, the need for democratic structuring of Internet governance mechanisms has been raised by many countries. The report of the UN secretary general, appointed Working Group on Internet Governance in 2004 had offered four possible models for Internet governance and had also touched upon the need for restructuring ICANN and its functioning. However, all such suggestions were opposed by the US, citing concerns about the security of the Internet medium and its desire to control the medium till it deemed fit. But, sooner or later, there has to be a clearly-defined global structure to address the various aspects of Internet control.

The fact remains that global responsibility for the protection of the Internet will grow, and all the stakeholders—from governments to corporate houses—have to participate in its upkeep. National security efforts of the major powers will no doubt look at it more closely, but efforts to have a common global strategy for addressing cyberattacks have to be fostered.

The US needs to be more careful on its part. After crying that security of the Internet was the reason for its unwillingness to hand over DNS management to any global entity at this stage, it should have implemented the Anycast technology and prevented the 6 February attack.

The number 13 has proved to be lucky. But more sophisticated attacks could some day cripple the 13 servers that make up the DNS.

Subimal Bhattacharjee writes on cybersecurity policy analysis. We welcome your comments at theirview@livemint.com