A DNS service is Domain Name Resolution. A DNS server takes a web URL (e.g. www.google.com
) and translates it to an IP address (in Google’s case, 216.58.216.206
). A DNS would not change what a website sees as your location.
It is theoretically possible that an attacker could pose as a public DNS server via a Man-in-the-Middle attack and redirect legitimate browser requests to lookalike phishing sites or sites that attempt to load malicious scripting and what have you.
This would, however, require access to a private network’s configuration or require the victim to be using a public or poorly secured network.
If you’re on a public network like many businesses offer, it’s possible, if unlikely, that an attacker is using hardware to imitate the public hotspot to capture data traffic.
If this is legitimately concerning you, you can, however, take a few easy steps to protect yourself whilst connected to a public network.
- Do not preform any sensitive browsing (online banking, ordering things on Amazon, etc) on public networks.
- When inputting a URL, prefix with
https://
to attempt to force the page to load securely. If the network is compromised or the site’s security certificates are invalid, you will be unable to load the page, however.
- Google Chrome (unsure about Firefox, I doubt IE does this) has a blacklist of reported malware and phishing sites and automatically blocks you from browsing to said pages.
There are slightly more advanced steps possible, like using a VPN to secure your public internet connection, but I'm not very familiar with VPN setup.