What does DNS have to do with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? News outlets on both sides of the aisle exploded with special counsel John Durham’s most recent legal filing. While the focus of the actual filing claimed that there was a conflict of interest on the legal team, a new fire was lit claiming computer scientists from the Clinton camp “intercepted internet traffic, that is emails or presumably text messages.” Regardless of how you interpret the facts of the legal case, the data that technology company Neustar collected while under contract with the White House was in fact DNS lookup information.
What is DNS lookup information?
Simply put, the Domain Name System (DNS) is the internet’s phone book. We all utilize domains every time we go to a website, but the actual web browsers communicate through Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. DNS lookups are a record showing that one IP address connected to another IP address.
This means that reviewing DNS lookup information is just like looking at a phone’s call history. You can see who called who, but the actual contents of the call or communication are not a part of that record.
Why is Protecting Your Company’s DNS Important?
It boils down to privacy and security. You and your organization have a right to keep your web activities private. While DNS protection is often an afterthought, it is critical to a proactive, in-depth cybersecurity strategy.
Attacks on your DNS can look like:
- Malware installation or credential theft: bad actors can hijack a DNS query and respond with a malicious IP address or trigger a phishing campaign
- DoS, DDoS, and DNS amplification attacks: DoS (denial-of-service): in simple terms, adversaries can overwhelm a system with requests in order to crash them and take advantage of other vulnerabilities
Have questions? Reach out to info@core82inc.com to learn more.