The Dangers of DNS Spoofing: How to Stay Safe?
For those looking to safeguard their data and information, DNS spoofing is a potential threat to keep on top of. DNS spoofing involves exploiting the Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerabilities for malicious purposes. Keep reading to learn more about how it works and the best practices for staying safe from this attack.
Definition of DNS Spoofing
DNS Spoofing, or DNS cache poisoning, is a type of cyber attack in which a malicious actor targets the Domain Name System (DNS). This is done by exploiting vulnerabilities in how DNS queries get answered, allowing the hacker to change the website, email, or IP address information in the DNS translation table. This process enables the hacker to redirect users to illegitimate websites where sensitive credentials and data may be stolen. It can also redirect users away from legitimate websites, disrupting communications between the user, website, and server. The severity of the attack can vary, ranging from website defacement and the theft of sensitive data to denial-of-service and malware attacks. As such, it is vital to understand the basics of DNS spoofing and how to guard against it.
How Does it Operate?
DNS spoofing typically begins with a DNS query. When a user enters a website address in their internet browser, the DNS query is sent to a DNS server to locate the corresponding IP address of the website. An attacker can exploit this DNS query to inject fake information into the DNS cache or ‘poison’ it by sending forged response records. This allows the attacker to deceive the DNS server into sending them to a malicious website instead of a legitimate one. DNS cache poisoning can be conducted in two ways – a man-in-the-middle attack where the hacker inserts their data into the existing DNS query sent by the user, or a DNS cache-poisoning attack where the hacker directly sends bogus information to the DNS server.
By ‘spoofing’ the DNS information, the attacker can create a false sense of trust and make users believe they are accessing a legitimate website when, in fact, they are visiting a malicious website. This type of attack can be used to carry out various malicious activities, from website defacement and the theft of sensitive data to denial-of-service and malware attacks. That’s why organizations and individuals need to understand how DNS spoofing works and how they can protect themselves from it.
Protection Measures Against DNS Spoofing
One of the most effective protection measures against DNS spoofing is to deploy a reliable DNS service. An example of that is Premium DNS. It uses multiple high-speed DNS servers with a vast Anycast DNS network of locations for exceptional performance and reliability. In addition, this Premium DNS will provide you with additional security features like a DNS firewall and anti-DDoS protection.
DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) is another DNS service that protects networks against DNS spoofing. It adds an extra layer of authentication to the DNS query/response process using public key cryptography. It verifies the originality of the DNS data and ensures that the correct server is responding.
Businesses and website owners can also deploy a Monitoring service to ensure the authenticity of the DNS data they are receiving. And finally, running a Dynamic DNS service can help monitor the DNS traffic to spot any unlawful activity. If users notice any suspicious activity, they can immediately update their DNS configuration and reroute the traffic to the proper server (proxy servers, mail servers, web servers, application servers, etc.).
Conclusion
DNS spoofing is a standard cyber attack that can have serious consequences. Therefore, it is vital to understand how DNS cache poisoning works and deploy the necessary measures to stay safe from it. Premium DNS, DNSSEC, and Monitoring services are just a few steps organizations and individuals can take to protect their data and information from a DNS spoofing attack.
Load balancing: How does it work?
Load balancing is a very helpful solution. Hopefully, you need to use it soon because that would mean that you already have to manage high traffic loads. Let’s explain more about load balancing!
What is load balancing?
Load balancing is a process used to distribute traffic and tasks over a set of resources to avoid overload, optimize response time and availability, and make efficient the overall operation. Rephrasing this, it is a distribution of traffic that takes place through a group of backend servers, also called a server pool.
Load balancing: How does it work?
One important note is that the purpose of load balancing is to equally distribute the workload among the available resources. Let’s picture an international online business that constantly receives requests from users worldwide. Can you calculate what it takes to process all those requests fast and accurately? We mean answering them with the exact information, text, video, or images the users requested.
It is a hard job! This business must have multiple servers to handle all this traffic and a load balancer. Why? Because you may think it has enough servers to do the job, and you are right. The issue is that without traffic distribution method, you can’t equally distribute the work. Some of your servers could be working at their full capacity, while others could be barely used. This means severe risks for such an essential and expensive infrastructure. Overloaded servers could crash or experience sluggishness, so the user experience will be affected, although the business owns a good number of resources. In addition, you will have to pay for them to be fixed. Downtime can cause money loss, disappointed clients, and a negative image.
Load balancing is the solution! It will work between the servers and clients. Through its algorithms, the load balancer will route the requests to the most capable servers to answer them while ensuring no server will overwork and maximizing capacity utilization and speed. If a server goes down, the load balancer will redirect the traffic to other servers. And, when this business, due to its growth, requires adding a new server or removing one, the load balancer can consider these moves and send the traffic accordingly.
Traffic distribution also provides high reliability and availability because it directs user requests only to the servers that are properly working.
Types of load balancing
You can choose between two types of load balancing, software and hardware.
Load balancer software-based. It is an application created with the necessary features to communicate with the servers and equally distribute the work among them. Usually, you can install it directly on your servers or access it through a third-party service.
Load balancer hardware-based. In this case, it is a machine (hosted in a data center) the one that processes and redirects traffic to other servers.
Conclusion
Now you know how to handle high-traffic loads. Load balancing is a great ace up your sleeve to keep growing. Keep it in mind!