The domain name system (DNS) on the internet serves as a directory for the entire web. It converts site names into a series of digits that a computer recognizes called an IP address, allowing users to access web pages ranging from sports and news sites to search engines and academic systems.
DNS is a useful technology that makes the internet more accessible to everyone. However, it is not without flaws. DNS requests are vulnerable to attacks but the good news is that you can secure your DNS. There are several methods to do so and it includes the use of network automation tools as well.
1. Use DNS forwarders
A DNS forwarder is a DNS server that acts as a proxy for another DNS server when performing DNS requests. The main benefits of using a DNS forwarder are to offload processing chores from the DNS server forwarding the query to the forwarder and taking advantage of the DNS forwarder’s possibly larger DNS cache. A DNS forwarder also stops the DNS server from transmitting the queries from communicating with Internet DNS servers.
When your DNS server is hosting your internal domain DNS resource records, this is extremely critical. Configure your internal DNS server to utilize a forwarder for all domains for which it is not authoritative, rather than allowing it to perform recursion and contact DNS servers directly.
2-Use DNS advertisers
A DNS advertiser is a DNS server that answers inquiries for domains for which it is the authoritative DNS server. If you provide publicly accessible resources for xyz.com and rop.com, for example, your public DNS server will be configured with DNS zone files for those domains.
The DNS advertiser differs from other DNS servers that store DNS zone files in that it only responds to inquiries for domains for whom it is authoritative. The DNS server will not recurse for queries to other DNS servers. This prevents users from using your public DNS server to resolve names in other domains. This enhances security by lowering the risk of cache poisoning when using a public DNS resolver.
3-Protect DNS from cache pollution
DNS cache pollution is becoming more and more of a problem. Before transmitting the response to the host that issued the query, most DNS servers can cache the results of DNS queries. The DNS cache can help your organization’s DNS query performance dramatically. Users may be forwarded to malicious Web sites instead of the sites they intended to view if the DNS server cache is “polluted” with false DNS entries.
The majority of DNS servers can be set up to avoid cache pollution. By default, the DNS server on Windows Server 2003 is designed to avoid cache pollution. If you’re using a Windows 2000 DNS server, you may prevent cache pollution by going to the DNS server’s Properties dialogue box and picking the Advanced tab. Restart the DNS server after selecting the Prevent Cache Pollution check box.
