When we talk about DNS lookup, security becomes a common concern. Having considered the same, Google has fully implemented a security feature that ensures a person looking up a website isn’t accidentally directed to a fake one.

Launched in 2009, Google’s Public DNS is a free DNS lookup service that helps translate a domain name, into an IP address that can be called into a browser. Due to increased problem of “cache poisoning” attacks, DNS systems can be tampered with by hackers, which leads to directing users to a different website, usually malicious.

To cope with the problem, ISPs and other network operators have been slowly implementing DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC). This involves using a public key cryptography to digitally “sign” the DNS records for websites. But a lot of effort requires to be done to ensure that all sites are digitally signed. The sites which are not signed usually become a victim of cache poisoning.

With this update, Google is now checking the digital signatures on DNSSEC-formatted messages, an important step in ensuring correct DNS queries.

“Previously, we accepted and forwarded DNSSEC-formatted messages but did not perform validation,” wrote Yunhong Gu, team lead for Google Public DNS. “With this new security feature, we can better protect people from DNS-based attacks and make DNS more secure overall by identifying and rejecting invalid responses from DNSSEC-protected domains.”

As of now, Google’s Public DNS answers more than 130 billion queries from more than 70 million IP addresses per day. Out of this, only 7 percent of queries request DNSSEC information.