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Background for this topic.
DNS is the distributed naming system that translates domain names into IP addresses and other service records. Its security matters because an attacker who compromises a registrar account, authoritative DNS server, or resolver can redirect users to an attacker-controlled service, disrupt access, or interfere with email and software updates. Forged replies and cache poisoning can produce similar redirection when validation is absent. DNS traffic can also carry command-and-control instructions or encoded data, although unusual queries require investigation rather than being treated as proof of compromise.
DNSSEC allows validating resolvers to authenticate signed DNS data, reducing spoofing and cache-poisoning risk; it does not encrypt queries or guarantee availability. Protect registrar and DNS-administration accounts with strong authentication and least privilege, restrict recursion and zone transfers, patch DNS software, and use redundant authoritative infrastructure. Monitor record changes, resolver errors, query volumes, and patterns such as long, frequently changing subdomains to support detection of hijacking, outages, or DNS tunneling.
Hotmail users worldwide have problems sending emails, with messages flagged as spam or not delivered after Microsoft misconfigured the domain's DNS SPF record. [...]
In this Dark Reading News Desk segment, Infoblox's Dr. Renée Burton discusses why better DNS monitoring is so important.
A team of researchers from UC Irvine and Tsinghua University has developed a new powerful cache poisoning attack named 'MaginotDNS,' that targets Conditional DNS (CDNS) resolvers and can compromise entire TLDs top-level domains. [...]