Why would my schools IT guy freak out that I knew the DNS?

Question

Just to see if it would work, I made a batch file on my school computer and it ran ipconfig /all
I tried to log on the next day and my account was disable. So I talked to the IT guy and he's like what are you trying to do with my DNS?
And he sounded really mad.
Why? Is it even possible to do anything bad with just a DNS?

Answer 1

Some Domain Name Servers can be vulnerable to attack where the contents of the servers address cache can be changed. If this server is vulnerable to attack, and entries in the cache get falsely updated, then anybody who attempts to access a URL with a false address, then they could be redirected to a completely different scam website.



In my experience, when IT staff react badly to users it is either because they don't really understand what they are doing, or because they know that they have a problem and don't know how to fix it.

Answer 2

DNS isn't the issue. Something else happened that either you are unaware of or are not reporting.

Answer 3

He doesn't worry about the DNS,he is worrying about a curious kid that runs batch files on his network.

Answer 4

my assumption of what could have happened: yooure batch was run multiple times (intentionally or not, by you or another person) and often in schools DNS or addressing servers are run on old PC's. Its most likely that it was seen by him/them as an attempt of DoS and it is even possible that it did put on an extra load on it. (ipconfig even tho its giving info on the local machine will send a tiny tiny bit of info to mentionned gateway, thus if repeated, will open and close tons of connections)

Answer 5

ipconfig lists a lot more than just your DNS, so it's pretty weird for him to be worried just about the DNS.



The only thing you can do with information from ipconfig is trying to connect to the school's routers or any other devices. If your school's IT guys are doing a good job, then you shouldn't be able to do anything with the information you have.