Defeating current DNS-based attacks

Domain name systems (DNS) has been undergirding the internet for more than four decades — and still it’s a daily pathway for cyberattacks. Considering how long security pros have had to create a better way to secure it, DNS security continues to lag, posing a significant security risk today. It remains responsible, at least to some extent, for a significant portion of cyber-attacks.

There’s a wide array of attacks based on DNS available to bad actors, including DDoS attacks, malware, phishing and domain theft. Attacks like these have the potential to cause significant disruption to an organization. Though there are many examples to draw from, the Google Cloud and  ChatGPT outages are some of the most high-profile current incidents. Almost every aspect of modern malware uses DNS in some way.

Let’s examine ways that criminals are leveraging DNS currently and, crucially, what a security team can improve upon to maintain the upper hand.