MasterCard DNS Error Went Unnoticed for Years

A security researcher found that MasterCard had a DNS misconfiguration from mid-2020 to Jan 14, 2025 where one of its Akamai DNS server hostnames was mistyped as "akam.ne" (a Niger TLD) rather than "akam.net." By registering the typo domain for $300 and enabling DNS, the researcher observed hundreds of thousands of queries and demonstrated the potential risk that an attacker could have intercepted traffic, obtained TLS certs, or captured credentials; MasterCard was notified, corrected the error, and the researcher says there is no evidence of exploitation.