Scale-Up and Time Your DNS Management with Whisper Watch

In the world today, almost everything's linked to everything, and yet, the Domain Name System (DNS) is still the unsung hero of all the transactions--from website loading to cloud service sharing. Even in its very important position, DNS is usually shadowed by other topics in cybersecurity and infrastructure management. According to Gigaom, attackers use the vulnerabilities in DNS to perform hijacking, spoofing, and data exfiltration attacks, thus transforming the seamless service into a strong attack vector.

Did you know? When DNS was first made by Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel in 1983, it was created to be a replacement for the HOSTS.TXT system, but that system had become unmanageable as the internet grew. Currently, the global DNS system manages over 100 trillion queries per year and it is only the internet's most fundamental protocol.

The Challenge of Modern DNS Environments

The contemporary businesses are in a situation where they use various DNS providers, namely internal and external, legacy and cloud-based ones. The problem arises when hundreds of records located across many platforms create a mountain of the work: some records become irrelevant, some security errors are not fixed, and some changes in the traffic under the many queries cannot be discovered. Traditional audits and irregularly updated tooling do not stand a chance to catch up with the increasing threats and expanding infrastructures.

Industry insight: Based on the most recent study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, 63% of enterprises had DNS-related security incidents, but just 27% of them declared their DNS security posture to be highly effective. The mean time for the identification of a DNS-based data breach is 221 days, which is almost 7 months of hardship caused by the possible loss of data.

Introducing DNS Whisper Watch

https://dnswhisper.axonshield.com

The DNS Whisper Watch from AxonShield is an intelligent and comprehensive solution created to provide control over DNS management and analysis. You can easily connect it to your current systems and get a single point of view on all DNS providers as well as anticipated insights in all your connected environment.

Supported DNS Providers

DNS Whisper Watch connects to over 50 DNS providers, giving you comprehensive coverage across your entire domain portfolio. Examples include:

• AWS Route 53

• Azure DNS

• Google Cloud DNS

• Cloudflare DNS

• NS1

• GoDaddy DNS

• DigitalOcean DNS

• Akamai Fast DNS

• DNS Made Easy

• Constellix

• ClouDNS

• DNSimple

• EasyDNS

• Neustar UltraDNS

• BlueCat DNS

• Rackspace Cloud DNS

• Namecheap Premium DNS

Deployment flexibility: By default, the platform is deployed in an AWS account that you own. It can be transformed into an SaaS solution, a container for on-site implantation in high-security environments, or the hybrid model that lets local storage for sensitive DNS data still exist and makes the purpose of cloud analytics for threat intelligence.

Solving DNS Configuration & Change Management Challenges

Unlike traditional DNS providers, DNS Whisper Watch resolves the most critical configuration and change management problems that will leave you exposed to security breaches:

1. Fragmented Visibility: Removes the need for logging into multiple provider dashboards by giving a single place to manage the DNS records coming from 50+ providers.

2. Stale Record Detection: Marks the unused or outdated DNS records automatically, most traditional providers of which have no detection technique.

3. Cross-Provider Misconfiguration: Solves the problem of inconsistencies that occur when a domain has records delegated to different providers, a blind spot in single-provider solutions.

4. DNSSEC Deployment Gaps: Uncovers domains that have no DNSSEC implementation and enables the proper DNSSEC deployment using guided workflows through the very different approach of basic providers that offer DNSSEC but give almost no guidance.

5. TTL Optimization: Based on real usage patterns, it digs query patterns to recommend the most suitable TTL values instead of the commonly used agency defaults that may not fit all. Including automatic adjustments before scheduled changes.

6. Shadow DNS Infrastructure: Such infrastructure reveals hidden or abandoned DNS data created outside official processes. Often left behind long after their use ended.

7. Provider Lock-in Risks: The standardization of record management across platforms makes it simpler to switch DNS providers, hence, the organizations are less dependent on proprietary systems.

8. Real-time Change Detection: Unlike traditional providers that either provide delayed or no change notification, it is able to instantly recognize all the DNS record changes made by any of the service providers connected to DNS Whisper.

9. Unauthorized Change Alerts: Informs you about the possible modifications done by other people to important DNS records which may be indicative of a security breach, it also shows who had done this and from where the changes came.

10. Configuration Drift Prevention: Regularly checks if the current DNS configurations are according to the guidelines to avoid any operational and security risks.

11. Change Approval Workflow: This new feature Implements approval and change management processes for DNS modifications across DNS systems—something individual DNS platforms cannot coordinate..

12. Scheduled Change Management: The feature of DNS changes planning and scheduling across a variety of providers with an automated validation capability in case of propagation issues is so far a novel one.

13. Automated Impact Analysis: Intelligently protecting the system from service disruptions is possible due to the processing of the potential effects of DNS changes before the execution which was a limitation only with a few providers.

14. External Monitoring Integration: Owing to that, the systems can correlate the DNS changes with the alerts emitted by the monitoring mechanism - whether it is one of your infrastructure, SIEM, or asset management system.

Addressing DNS Traffic & Usage Pattern Challenges

DNS Whisper Watch also covers the complications of DNS query patterns and traffic analysis that are pretty sensitive and that in the case of conventional providers, remain quite unnoticed:

1. Incomplete Audit Trails: Shows the full history of changes of all DNS records which is in contrast to a lot of providers that only offer storage of changes for a very limited period of time or even no historical tracking at all.

2. DNS-Based Data Exfiltration: Recognizes the query patterns in the DNS that are not typical and could indicate a possible DNS tunneling attack originated from data theft, which all in all, is a feature that most of the standard DNS providers lack.

3. Global Performance Bottlenecks: Performance metrics that can be compared across the board of all DNS providers revealing the slowest resolvers impacting the user experience.

4. Compliance Documentation Gaps: Along with achieving compliance requirements, the tool automatically drafts the required reports about the DNS infrastructure for security audits, thereby completely getting rid of the tedious writing of the documentation.

5. DNS Amplification Attack Vulnerability: Describes misconfigurations that might allow your network to be used as a reflection/amplification point for a DDoS attack.

Key Features

Multi-Provider Aggregation: Aggregate and arrange data from 50+ providers via a single monitoring dashboard, effectively wiping out coverage holes and with reduced effort.

Legacy Record Insights: Search and detect old or unused DNS records that may be a risk to security and compliance, and merge them to create a much more efficient governance repository.

Security Gap Detection: Use ready-to-go Domain Name System configuration checking system to find DNS misconfigurations — such as DNSSEC not being implemented, open recursive servers, or the time-to-live field set too high that may be exploited by malicious attackers.

Traffic Pattern Analytics: Display query volumes, source distribution maps of geolocation, and unusual traffic spikes and patterns in real time that enable users to track possible DDoS attacks or the extraction of data through the use of exfiltration via DNS tunneling.

Seamless Integration & Automation: Take advantage of the RESTful APIs, webhooks, and native connectors for ITSM and SIEM platforms to automate the process of incidents, alerts and also record management ensuring an immediate response.

Advanced Workflow & Change Management

The DNS Whisper Watch platform does more than just a simple monitoring function; it also deploys a very comprehensive workflow and change management system that is lacking in the traditional DNS space.

• End-to-End Change Orchestration: This feature is a one-stop-shop for handling DNS changes from the initial request to implementation that involves all providers and to the last step, which is verification across all providers, thus eliminating the need for manual coordination.

• Automated Pre-Change Testing: This is a sandbox environment for the user to simulate the effects of the DNS proposed changes before the changes are actually made, so that they can be on the lookout for any disruptions or security concerns that may come up.

• Role-Based Access Controls: It is capable to support different team members like juniors to view-only and the seniors for implementation rights, at both ends of all devices and DNS providers, through a single policy framework.

• Emergency Change Management: Provides fast implementation for critical and urgent updates ensuring high-level of testing, control, and validation.

• Change and Approval Workflows: It comes with approval chains to comply with customer change processes, such as security approval from the security team concerning external zones, a network team for internal zones, and so on.

• Integration with ITSM Systems: It has a synchronized set-up at ServiceNow, Jira, and any other ITSM platforms to allow the reconciling of DNS changes and the overall IT management change processes.

Operational impact: Initial adopter did not talk about percentages. The impact was life-transforming that they were able, for the first time ever, analyze and inspect all their DNS data from one console. Life-changing in terms of understanding their internet defence surface.

Why DNS Whisper Watch Matters

DNS Whisper Watch enables your team to have DNS intelligence at a single and secure point so you can:

• Minimize Risk by scanning and closing potential security holes before they lead to damage.

• Rationalize Costs by executing the necessary cleanup of old records with automatic deactivation and TTL configuration of the current situation, then there are not any expensive, dangerous and hard to reach projects that, for example, use DNS to target health and security issues.

• Boost Performance by understanding regional request patterns and finding stray queries that cause the most delays.

• Empower Compliance and Operations with easy-to-automate rules, history of changes, and decree-following policy.

DNS Whisper Watch is an indispensable tool for organizations in such industries as banking, medical care, retail, and government that not only helps IT departments keep their DNS systems clean and secure at all times but also promotes sound security procedures and strengthens the underlying network infrastructure.

Getting Started

Ready to transform your DNS operations? Visit AxonShield's DNS Whisper Watch page and let's take it from there:

https://dnswhisper.axonshield.com