DNS Security

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DNS
Security
Infoblox Special Edition
by Joshua M. Kuo, Robert Nagy,

and Cricket Liu
foreword by Cricket Liu
These materials are © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
DNS Security For Dummies®, Infoblox Special Edition
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Foreword
P
aul Albitz and I wrote the first edition of DNS and BIND way
back in 1992. (Well, actually, we started it about 14 months
before that, so in 1991.) Back then, DNS security wasn’t a
thing. BIND 4.8.3, the version of the BIND DNS server that was
current when we wrote that first edition, had the following secu-
rity features:
»» It wouldn’t accept a response it received from a DNS server it

hadn’t queried (playfully dubbed a Martian response).
»» It stamped a random, 16-bit number, called a Message ID,
into each outbound query it sent to a remote DNS server,
and when it received a response from that DNS server, it
made sure the Message ID matched.
»» That’s it.
Over the years, DNS — both the protocol and the servers —
became the target of a variety of attacks, including the Lion worm,
a cache poisoning attack on www.internic.net, social engineer-
ing attacks against registrar accounts, and distributed denial of
service attacks on DNS servers. And so the DNS community devel-
oped new mechanisms to combat these attacks including access
controls on queries, dynamic updates, and zone transfers; DNS
security extensions; response policy zones; and response rate
limiting.
Unfortunately, I’ve been remiss in keeping DNS and BIND up to

date on all these new developments. (I blame that mostly on the
demands of raising a family and working a full-time job, and only
partly on being daunted and disheartened by the thought of all of
the research and writing involved.)
The good news for you, dear reader, and for me, is that the little
book you’re holding will help make up for my negligence by pro-
viding you with an overview on the new security mechanisms
in DNS. Rob and Josh know their stuff: They’ve been develop-
ing and delivering courses on DNS and DNS security for my
Foreword iii
company, Infoblox, for years. They’ll give you an overview of the
most important DNS security technologies and advice on when
you should apply them. (They even generously gave me credit as
a co-author for providing the outline and a little help here and
there.) And with a little further research and effort on your part,
that could lead you to building more secure and more robust DNS
infrastructure!
—Cricket Liu, Chief DNS Architect and Senior Fellow at Infoblox
iv DNS Security For Dummies, Infoblox Special Edition
Introduction
E
verybody uses the Internet. The Internet is so intrinsic to
modern life that everyone takes it for granted. However, a
worldwide network of computing power doesn’t just work on
its own. Over the relatively short life of the Internet, many
sophisticated technologies, such as DNS, have grown to make the
convenience that we’ve come to expect from the Internet
possible.
The Internet is the target of attacks by unethical people. These

people might just want to cause mischief, or they might want to
extort you for large amounts of money. Either way, it’s important
to know how to protect yourself and your electronic property.
We have a passion for just that kind of protection. That’s why we

wrote this book: We want to give you a solid understanding of how
the most common types of attacks work. Moreover, we want to
offer the know-how to keep you safe.
About This Book

You’ve probably picked up this book because you’re confident
enough to admit that you don’t know as much about DNS security
and are clever enough to look for more knowledge. We don’t think
you’ll be disappointed. In this brief volume, we offer a primer of
many of the common terms you’ll run into, high-level descrip-
tions of the threats you face, and practical solutions that you can
implement right away.
Like all titles in the For Dummies series, this book features
easy-access organization. At the beginning of each chapter, you’ll
find a summary of the topics covered, which makes it easy to flip
through and find just the information you’re looking for. Don’t
miss the final chapter featuring ten easy-to-scan techniques for
improving your DNS security.
Introduction 1
Foolish Assumptions
DNS security isn’t exactly a cocktail party conversation topic,
so we assume that readers of this book have a vested interest in
keeping corporate websites functioning and secure. However, we
tried to write this book so that all people who pick up a copy can
learn something new and interesting that deepens their under-
standing of Internet security.
You can’t write a book like this without making a few assump-
tions, though. For this book, we assume that you’re an experi-
enced user of the Internet. We define most of our terms, but we
do assume you understand the basics of networking like server,
client, and IP address.
Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, we occasionally use special icons to call
attention to important information. Here’s what to expect:
Whenever you see a Remember icon, make a mental note about

what you’re reading, because this information may turn up again
in this book.
The Technical Stuff icon marks extra-technical reading. You can

skip it if you want or come back to it later.
The Tip icon points out information that’s handy to know
This icon points out some dangers to be on the lookout for.
Beyond the Book

If any of these topics in this book has you scratching your head, go
ahead and read on anyway, then bring your questions to the Support
menu on https://infoblox.com. They would love to explain more.
2 DNS Security For Dummies, Infoblox Special Edition
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Learning what DNS is and where it came
from
»» Discovering how DNS works
»» Reviewing types of resource records
»» Understanding queries, recursion, and

iteration
Chapter 1
DNS 101
T
he amount of data that the Internet contains is growing at
an astronomical pace. A single computer doesn’t hold it all,
of course; this much data must be distributed across count-
less computers all over the world. Even so, with an Internet con-
nection, you can navigate to any file on the Internet as easily as
you find a file on your own hard drive.
This amazing capability comes from the Domain Name System, or

DNS. DNS is the tool that your browser uses to quickly find a file
that might be stored in a computer anywhere on earth.
What Is DNS?
Although phone books are quickly going out of style, many
people still remember what they are. DNS works very much like
a phone book in that it helps turn names (URLs for resources on
the Internet) into numbers (IP addresses of the computer that
contains the resource).
Perhaps a more modern example would be to compare DNS to the

contacts in a smartphone. Not many folks nowadays memorize
each other’s phone numbers; we rely on the contact application
in our phones to translate names or faces to phone numbers. In
essence, that is what DNS does.
CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 3
DNS History
DNS stands for Domain Name System and is an Internet protocol
that converts human-readable names to IP addresses, changes IP
addresses back to names, and provides easy-to-remember names
for many Internet-based services, such as email.
At the dawning of the Internet, or as it was known back then,

the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), very
few people and machines were actually online. Each computer
using the Internet had an IP address, but since there were so few
IP addresses, memorizing them wasn’t a big deal.
As the number of machines quickly grew, people thought it would

be a good idea to use more human-friendly names. Instead of
remembering a computer’s IP address, such as 128.171.32.45,
ARPANET, users could enter names such as GOPHER-HAWAII. A
single text file named HOSTS.TXT served as a name-to-address
map. The Stanford Research Institute (then a part of ARPANET)
manually maintained the file, also known as the hosts file, in a
single place, and distributed it to ARPANET users.
Back then, if you wanted to translate a name to an IP address, you

needed to download the latest copy of the hosts file. Likewise, if
you wanted to be known by the other parts of ARPANET by name,
you needed to contact the maintainer of the hosts file and add
yourself to the list.
This centralized system quickly proved unscalable. Computer sci-

entist and Internet pioneer Paul Mockapetris began work writ-
ing a standards document to define a replacement for host files.
He took his proposed standard to the Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF), which still today produces standards documents that
define how Internet protocols should operate and interoperate.
In 1983, Mockapetris published the first standards documents in

the IETF that would become the basis for the DNS. His proposal
called for a decentralized, distributed structure of name serv-
ers. More than 30 years later, this same system is still very much
in use, making Paul Mockapetris the official Father of DNS.
Figure 1-1 shows a timeline that summarizes the evolution of DNS
through 1987.
FIGURE 1-1: It took only ten years to get from unconnected computers to the
modern DNS we know today.
DNS Structure
DNS distributes responsibility for an ever-growing list of network
device names. It does this by creating a hierarchy of responsibility.
This is often shown with an upside down tree, such as Figure 1-2,
where the root servers are at the top and the leaves (which represent
all the end host nodes on the Internet) are at the bottom. The entire
tree represents the namespace of DNS. Each server that is responsi-
ble for part of the namespace is called a “name server.” Some name
servers just send packets along until they reach an answer.
FIGURE 1-2: Like the branches of a tree, each

domain name can have multiple subdomains.
CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 5
The root name servers direct DNS queries to name servers for each
of the top-level domains, which are the main branches just below
it (for example, .com, .net.jp, and .info). Root name servers are
authoritative name servers for DNS’s root zone, which is some-
times written as a single dot (.). Being authoritative for a zone
means being responsible for that domain, except the parts del-
egated to different authoritative name servers.
Name resolution is the process of following these delegations of

responsibility until reaching the name server that has the answer:
in other words, the authoritative server for that zone. Root name
servers are a critical part of the Internet infrastructure because
they represent the first step in name resolution; thus every name
server in the world needs to know about them in order to walk
down the tree to the end host it is looking for. The list of root
name servers, including their names and addresses, resides on
every DNS server in a file known as the root hints file.
This allows a company like “Example,” shown in Figure 1-2, to

register the domain name “example.com” and manage just the
subdomain names within that domain. The rest of the world
doesn’t need to know where Example’s name servers are. When
an Internet user wants to visit example.com, the user’s device can
ask the root name servers, which will send it to .com name serv-
ers, which will, in turn, send it to the example.com name servers.
The example.com name servers have answers for any subdomain
names within example.com.
Authority and Zones

A DNS zone is a domain that a party is responsible for main-
taining, minus any subdomains the party delegated control of to
another party. The responsible party uses that zone to maintain
the resource records for that domain. Resource records map infor-
mation to common names. The server where the party edits the
resource records is typically called the primary name server or mas-
ter name server. Because a single server isn’t enough for a robust
solution, additional name servers can also be authoritative for a
zone by getting a copy of the zone data from the primary or mas-
ter name server through a process called a zone transfer. These
additional servers are called secondary name servers or slave name
servers.
The terms master and primary are interchangeable. The data on the
primary server is the only version that a person should ever edit.
Similarly, the terms secondary and slave (an unfortunate old term)
are also interchangeable. The secondary server receives informa-
tion only as a copy of the data on the primary server. Nobody
should ever edit the data directly on the secondary server.
Resource Records
Resource records identify the information and/or services associ-
ated with a given domain name.
All resource records use the same format, which we discuss in the
following list:
»» Name: A domain name in which this resource record pertains.

»» TTL: A 32-bit integer that specifies the time interval that the
resource record may be cached before it should be
discarded.
»» Class: Two octets specifying the class of the data in the
RDATA field. The most common type is IN for Internet.
»» Type: This filed specifies the meaning of the data in the
RDATA field.
»» RDLENGTH: A 16-bit integer that specifies the length in
octets of the RDATA text: for instance, how large is the
payload.
»» RDATA: A variable-length string that describes the resource.
The format varies according to the TYPE and CLASS of the
resource record.
Although all resource records share a common overall structure,

they may contain different types of information in their RDATA
field, such as network- or service-specific information.
To understand resource records, you need to understand the

NAME field a bit more. The NAME field contains a domain name
name associating this name to various information. If the infor-
mation is about the domain itself that is enough, but when the
information is related to an end host then a fully qualified domain
name or FQDN is used. The FQDN has two parts: the host name
and the domain name.
CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 7
For example, consider FQDN www.example.com. In this FQDN,
www is the host name, and example.com is the domain name.
Each word that is separated by the dot character is also known
as a label, so www is a label, example is a label, and com is a label.
There can be more than one resource record associated with an

FQDN. All the resource records associated with an FQDN that have
the same values in the NAME and TYPE fields, regardless of their
RDATA value, are considered a Resource Record Set (RRSET).
Common Resource Records

and Their Uses
Each of the following sections discusses a type of record and lists
the most important fields in the record with example data. How-
ever, we have omitted two important fields from each section:
»» We omitted the CLASS field because, for all common record

types, the value is IN for Internet.
»» We omitted the RDLENTH field because it is just a reference
to the length of the data. It could be any value.
A records
A records are the most common record used in DNS. These records
match easily remembered hostnames to the IP addresses of the
resource. Figure 1-3 is a sample A record.
FIGURE 1-3: The RDATA field in an A record contains the IP address of the

resource.
AAAA Records
AAAA records (or quad A, as they are often called) are used to map
hostnames to their IPv6 addresses. Figure 1-4 is a sample quad A
record.
FIGURE 1-4: The RDATA field in a quad A record contains the IPv6 of the
resource.
SOA records
The SOA record, which stands for start of authority records, pro-
vides the querier, including secondary servers and recursive serv-
ers, information about the zone itself, including the master name
server (mname), the responsible party (rname), and timers for how
the zone and its records should be handled.
The timers that appear in the RDATA field are:
»» Refresh: How often a secondary server should contact the

primary server for updates.
»» Retry: How soon a secondary server should try contacting
primary server if an attempt fails.
»» Expire: How long a secondary server can hold the zone data
when it cannot reach the primary server.
»» Minimum: How long recursive name servers can cache a
negative answer, such as NXDOMAIN, also known as NCACHE
for negative cache.
Figures 1-5 and 1-6 show a sample SOA record.
FIGURE 1-5: An SOA lookup returns a lot of information in the RDATA field

compared to other resource records, including the mname and rname.
FIGURE 1-6: This figure shows much of the same information from the RDATA
field in the previous figure, as it appears in the dig tool.
CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 9
Other Record types
Other record types include the following:
»» CNAME records map additional names back to a hostname,

like an alias. A common use of this kind of record is to map
service names to a server name. For example, the record
ftp.example.com points to the server named helium12.
example.com.
»» PTR records map an IP address back to the hostnames that
exist for the IP address. PTR records are mostly used by
applications and systems to determine the name associated
with the IP address.
»» NS records publish the name of the name servers for a
domain. This is used by other DNS servers to find the
authoritative name servers of a domain.
»» MX records allow DNS clients to find mail servers for the
domain.
»» TXT records allow an FQDN to be associated with a text
string. TXT records originally provided information about the
host associated with that name. Today they are more often
used in security by helping to verify the host by providing
hashes and other information.
Query Path, Recursion, and Iteration

A query path is the set of queries starting from the initial question
from the client and finishing with the answer the client receives. A
query path can be as simple as a client asking a server and receiv-
ing an answer directly. However, a query path can also be complex
and include multiple servers working together to track down the
answer. Understanding the query path of a given question allows
you to troubleshoot issues and identify where you need to focus
your DNS security.
It’s important to understand what we mean when we say a client

asks a question. When a DNS client asks simple questions like
“What is the IPv4 address of www.google.com?” a stub resolver is
the piece of software code that actually sends the DNS question.
For the scope of this book, you can assume that “client” is an
application or a machine that has a stub resolver running on it.
Therefore, a web browser is a client, and a laptop or mobile phone
can also be a client.
When a client asks a question, it is unable to follow referrals given

by other name servers to track down the answer on its own. It
has to rely on a full-fledged DNS server, which may call on other
name servers, to chase down the answer. Figure 1-7 illustrates
several name servers involved in answering a simple question.
FIGURE 1-7: Eight queries and answers make up the query path required to
get this client the answer to “What is the IP address of www.example.com?”
Now take a look at the different parts of the query path in Figure 1-7
and break down how the servers use recursion and iteration to move
down the DNS tree and find the answer the client is looking for.
Recursion is the process repeatedly asking the question to name

servers and following referrals until finding the name server
with the answer. The recursive query basically says, “I would like
to know the answer to this question. And if you don’t know the
answer, please ask others until you’ve found the answer.”
All clients ask recursive queries by default, because clients are usu-
ally not capable of “walking the tree” to chase down the answers
on their own. A name server providing recursion accepts recursive
queries, and fulfills them by executing iterative queries in the back-
ground to track down answers. As a result of processing recursive
queries, recursive name servers build up a rich cache of answers
over time, thus they are also known as caching name servers.
An iterative name query is typically sent by DNS servers to other

DNS servers, in pursuit of finding the answer. A key difference
CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 11
between iteration and recursion is that iterative queriers must
have the ability to follow referrals, which means they track down
the answer.
Figure 1-8 provides the details to the query path to illustrate how

it all comes together.
FIGURE 1-8: The query path.
Here’s a breakdown of how the query path happens:
1. The client queries the recursive name server that it is

configured to use.
2. The recursive server checks its internal cache. If it doesn’t find
the answer to the question, it checks its root hints file and
sends the query to one of the 13 root name servers listed in
the file.
3. The root name server doesn’t contain specific records that
answer the question, but it does know where the com name
servers are. It sends a referral in the form of the NS RRSET for
the com name servers and the A records for those name
servers. These matching A records are called glue records.
4. The recursive server caches the responses from the root
name server and queries one of the com servers it was given
for www.example.com.
5. The com name servers do not contain www.example.com, but
someone has registered example.com and provided com with
the information for the name servers. The com name server
sends a referral of the NS and A records for example.com.
6. The recursive server caches the records from com and
queries one of the example.com name servers provided in
the referral.
7. The example.com name server returns the answer from the
authoritative zone example.com.
8. The recursive name server caches the answer returned
from the example.com name servers and sends the response
to the client.
CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 13
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Understanding how DDoS attacks work
»» Learning about cache poisoning attacks
»» Discovering how malware uses DNS
Chapter 2
Threats to DNS Security
D
NS is becoming a more common target of network attacks.
As one of the oldest and most relied-on protocols of the
modern Internet, DNS is the cornerstone to almost all
other services and protocols. This makes DNS an appealing target
to attackers.
Because it is one of the most relied-on protocols, stopping

attacks can’t be as simple as adding a firewall rule. It’s good to
know how these attacks work before discussing solutions to stop
them. In this chapter, we show you a few common types of DNS-
based attacks; in the next chapter, we focus on remediation and
solutions.
DDoS Attacks
There are many types of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
You probably see them in the news these days, often accompanied
by a ransom to induce the attacker to stop the DDoS attack. When
it comes to DNS, you can look at specific types of attacks that are
used to overwhelm DNS servers, thus rendering the DNS service
unavailable. When an attack on the DNS is successful, it can bring
an organization to a screeching halt. When a company can’t pub-
lish the addresses for its web and mail servers, business stops.
CHAPTER 2 Threats to DNS Security 15
The two main attack methodologies you want to look at are ampli-
fication and reflection. While technically two different attack tac-
tics, attackers often combine amplification and reflection attacks.
Amplification
An amplification attack is a technique where a small query can
trigger a large response, such as querying for a TXT record or a
zone transfer when you haven’t secured zone transfers to only
your trusted sources. By flooding the server with short requests
that require long responses, even a relatively weak computer can
overload a DNS server. The DNS server is so busy doing the heavy
lifting to respond to all these bogus requests that it doesn’t have
time to respond to legitimate ones.
DNS servers make surprisingly good amplifiers. Here is a simple

example:
If a user makes a DNS query for “isc.org/ANY,” the query is 44

bytes long, and the response is 4077 bytes long. That is around 93
times amplification!
This example and some simple math show how devastating

amplification can be. Say an attacker is generating queries with
a botnet (a network of independent hosts, or bots, infected with
malware), and each bot has a measly 1 Mbps connection to the
Internet:
With a 1 Mbps connection, each bot could send the 44 byte query
from the previous example approximately 2,909 times per second.
Because each query results in a response that is 4,077 bytes,

you can calculate that the DNS server has to come up with about
93 megabytes each second.
If the botnet contains 11 bots all doing the same thing, that’s a
total of over 1 gigabytes that the DNS server is supposed to send
out every second of the attack!
Amplification alone makes an effective attack, because attackers

can use less powerful resources to overload more powerful serv-
ers. However, what makes DNS an even greater target for devious
DDoS is reflection.
Reflection
A reflection attack sends queries that look like they came from the
victim of the attack. The response (often a large, amplified answer)
is sent to the victim, who never asked, and the amount of the
response traffic could potentially overwhelm the victim’s network.
In a reflection attack, an attacker sends a query to a recursive

name server with a spoofed source IP address. Instead of his real
IP address, he places the target (victim) IP address as the source
IP address. The recursive name server does the legwork, retrieves
the answer to the query from the authoritative name server, and
sends the answer to the unsuspecting victim.
Combination attacks
Now the attacker combines the two techniques by spoofing the vic-
tim’s IP address and sending a carefully crafted query that will result
in a large payload. This is a very effective DDoS attack; the authorita-
tive name server provides the amplification, and the recursive name
server provides the reflection. This allows the attacker to attack two
different victims at the same time. It also causes the victim of the
amplification attack to possibly believe he or she was attacked by
the second victim, causing potentially even more mayhem.
Figure 2-1 shows an example of combining amplification and

reflection to cause DDoS. As you can see, this attack consumes
the resources of not only the victim, but also those of the recur-
sive name servers. This is why securing a publicly facing recur-
sive server against recursion from the world is one of the most
important best practices in DNS Security. It prevents you from
playing the role of amplifier.
Here is how the attack proceeds:
1. An attacker-controlled botnet sends DNS queries with a

victim’s spoofed IP address to recursive name servers.
2. Recursive name servers follow the standard DNS path and
send the query to other authoritative name servers.
3. Recursive name servers receive the (amplified) response
from authoritative servers.
4. Recursive name servers send the (amplified) response to the
victim, whose IP address was listed as the source address in
the original query.
FIGURE 2-1: An amplified reflection attack.
Cache Poisoning
Also known as DNS spoofing, cache poisoning focuses on corrupt-
ing the cached answers on the recursive name servers, either
through software exploits or protocol weaknesses.
Figure 2-2 describes an older-style DNS cache poisoning by

attaching malicious answers to the ADDITIONAL section of the
DNS response. An older, less secure recursive name server would
accept the RRset in the ANSWER section, and also accept the RRset
in the ADDITIONAL section, even if those records were unrelated
to the question being answered.
Here’s how that variant of the cache poisoning attack works:
1. Query a recursive server for foo.example.com.

2. Send replies spoofing the example.com name server’s IP
address and with various query IDs, including malicious
records in the Additional Section, in this case redirecting all
queries to a com name server to the bad guy’s DNS server at
10.17.34.25. (Of course, this would need to be a reachable IP
address in a real attack.)
FIGURE 2-2: A cache poisoning attack can land unsuspecting website visitor
on nefarious pages.
;; ANSWER SECTION:
foo.example.com 3600 IN A 10.17.34.25
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
a.gtld-servers.net. 1540000 IN A
10.17.34.27 ; (bad guy's IP address)
Name servers have been patched against this older cache poison-
ing attack for some time. This was accomplished by requiring DNS
servers not to accept additional data that is unrelated to the origi-
nal query.
One of the most (in)famous cache poisoning attacks was discov-

ered by an American computer security expert, Dan Kaminsky,
in 2008. The attack Kaminsky discovered takes advantage of
a weakness in the DNS protocol itself. When a recursive name
server makes a query, it sets the value of five fields. If it receives
a response with matching values for these fields, with an answer
to the question that it asked, then it accepts the answer as legiti-
mate, returns it to the client, and stores it in its cache.
As it turns out, four of the fields are easy to figure out and
spoof, so only one field is actually meaningful: the Query ID or
TXID. The Query ID has relatively few possible values, by com-
puter standards. It is a 16-bit number, or a value between 0 and
about 64,000. This makes it possible for an attacker to initiate
an information request, then when the recursive server asks the
next server up the tree, the attacker tries his luck firing a lot of
responses at the recursive name server that look like they came
from that authoritative server. If the attacker gets lucky and
guesses the right query ID, the original server stores the bad data
from the attacker’s bogus response in cache and passes it on if
any other servers ask for it.
A well-crafted Kaminsky attack can insert a bogus entry in the

cache within minutes. To make matters worse, the attacker could
choose to poison an NS record, thus taking command of an entire
domain rather than just a single entry. The most common fix
for the vulnerability sends queries from random source ports,
since the response must arrive at the same random port. Hav-
ing two values to guess correctly makes crafting an acceptable
bogus response much more difficult. The attack becomes more
time-consuming, but there is no surefire way to guard against
this type of attack without changing the protocol itself. Fortu-
nately, the enhanced DNSSEC helps with this problem. We talk
about this in Chapter 3.
Malware and Exfiltration

The term malware comes from combining the words “malicious”
and “software.” Malware is a category of software designed with
malicious intent. Often, malware is installed without the user’s
knowledge and operates in the background, safely hidden from
attention.
Although malware is typically distributed via web servers, dis-
guised as part of the web content, its foundation is in DNS. Mod-
ern attackers don’t rely on a single, registered domain name such
as malware.not-evil.example.com. Instead, they create a complex
system that automatically registers hundreds or thousands of
domain names on the fly and configures them to point to web
servers that distribute malicious content. Changing their domain
names constantly makes it difficult to block them at a DNS level.
Once it has infected a computer, malware uses DNS to resolve a list

of domain names of possible command-and-control servers until
it finds one that is available and responds. Command-and-control
servers are special servers maintained by the malware owners
that tell the infected client what to do. The list of command-
and-control servers can be compiled into the malware, or syn-
thesized using what’s known as a domain-generation algorithm.
Malware can also sneak sensitive data out of your network, a

technique known as data exfiltration. Because it is done over DNS,
data exfiltration is also known as DNS tunneling.
Although there are many DNS tunneling implementations out

there, all of them rely on the capability of clients to perform DNS
queries. DNS tunneling software allows users to do:
»» Relatively innocuous things, such as getting free airport Wi-Fi

»» Potentially dangerous acts, such as using SSH to evade
corporate firewalls
»» Outright malicious activities, such as stealing sensitive
information
In the case of the last, clients evade detection by breaking data

down into query-sized chunks, disguising sensitive data as DNS
queries, and sending them to malicious DNS servers on the far
end who can unpack these queries and reconstruct the data.
It’s like stealing someone’s car without opening the garage door:
You have to break the car down into small chunks that fit through
the doors and windows, and then rebuild the car outside. Except
in the case of data exfiltration, the malware breaks down files,
sometimes even encrypting each chunk, before sneaking them off
your premises to reassemble.
Figure 2-3 illustrates a simplified flow of how data exfiltration
works over DNS. The steps in Figure 2-3 go like this:
1. The attacker registers the domain name ZG5ZC2VJDXJPDHKK.

COM, and sets up name server NS1.ZG5ZC2VJDXJPDHKK.
COM.
2. The infected client encodes stolen information, in this case
the text “Pa$$w0rd” into “UGEKJHCWCMQK.”
3. The client makes the DNS query for the domain with the
encoded password as a subdomain: UGEKJHCWCMQK.
ZG5ZC2VJDXJPDHKK.COM.
4. A recursive name server finds the authoritative name server
NS1.ZG5ZC2VJDXJPDHKK.COM and sends the query there.
5. The attacker recognizes the subdomain value as the encoded
password. The attacker decodes the information
UGEKJHCWCMQK back to recover “Pa$$w0rd.”
FIGURE 2-3: DNS tunneling can sneak your passwords into DNS queries that
look like gibberish.
In this example, it is not necessary for the client to receive a

response from the malicious server, because the goal was to send
information out; however, the process can easily include the
malicious server sending back an exploit to be executed on the
infected client.
An example of a well-publicized malware attack that leveraged

DNS is WannaCry. WannaCry was (or is) ransomware — a type of
malware that encrypts valuable data on a computer and charges
the user a price to get it unencrypted — that used a vulnerability
in the Windows platform at the time. Once inside the network,
it could infect any unpatched Windows computer using SMB,
Microsoft’s remote file sharing protocol. Users of the infected
computers saw a screen like in Figure 2-4.
FIGURE 2-4: Unlike attacks that just cause mayhem, ransomware attacks your
pocketbook directly.
Where DNS was noticeably involved was in WannaCry’s decision

to encrypt data. The malware incorporated a kill-switch using
DNS, first checking for the existence of an obscure domain name
via a DNS query and, when it was not found, encrypting files and
holding the computer hostage. If the creators of the malware
needed to stop the ransoming they could just register the domain.
Once the “good guys” discovered this fact, they could address
WannaCry in two different ways.
1. DNS providers could look for queries for that domain name
to identify clients infected with WannaCry.
2. Good guys could register the kill-switch domain name that
told the malware not to ransom data, in effect neutering the
ransomware until the code could be changed to point to
other not-yet-registered domain names.
In this example, the malware developer’s use of DNS led to the

possibility of easy remediation. In the next chapter, we look at
more way to prevent and resolve DNS attacks.
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Using response rate limiting to prevent
amplification
»» Creating a trustworthy Internet through

DNS security extensions
»» Configuring response policy zones
Chapter 3
DNS Security Solutions
T
he good guys are not idle in the face of all these threats, of
course. The security community responds quickly to new
kinds of attacks by creating security mechanisms and pro-
tections to keep your systems safe. Even before that, white hat
hackers, or ethical computer security experts, try to penetrate
their own systems so they can uncover weaknesses before attack-
ers have a chance to exploit them.
In this chapter, we explore some of the more important secu-

rity mechanisms that have been added to DNS since its original
design. These mechanisms can help mitigate the threats we dis-
cuss in Chapter 2. We also look specifically at how Infoblox has
made implementing these protections user-friendly.
Response Rate Limiting (RRL)

A DDoS attack overwhelms DNS servers with so many superfluous
queries that they can’t correctly direct legitimate traffic. When
you look at addressing DDoS attacks, the critical issue becomes
separating valid queries from malicious queries. Attackers are very
good at making their queries look legitimate, so the trick is to look
at the pattern of queries rather than at the queries themselves. This
is the fundamental concept behind response rate limiting (RRL).
CHAPTER 3 DNS Security Solutions 25
RRL basics
If a DDoS attack is like a single doughnut-store customer buying
up all the doughnuts so that no one else can have any, then RRL is
limiting each customer to only one doughnut of each flavor each
day. If each person can buy only one chocolate and one glazed
each day, then the DDoS attack can’t do as much damage.
RRL depends on the concept of a token bucket to limit how many

responses the DNS server will send to any single client. A config-
uration on the DNS server creates a token bucket for each client
that contains, for example, five tokens and adds five more each
second. The server takes out one token for each query response it
sends to the client. Figure 3-1 illustrates the setup.
FIGURE 3-1: The token bucket prevents name servers from

sending responses to the same client too frequently.
Once the bucket is empty, it takes 15 seconds to refill. In the mean-

time, the server sends truncated responses to the client instead
of full responses. Truncated responses prevent the amplification
that attackers get from full query responses. Add in the 15-second
delay preventing the volume of queries from overwhelming the
server, and presto! Suddenly the DNSSEC server is not useful in
amplification attacks.
When legitimate clients happen to empty their own token bucket,

waiting 15 seconds to try again isn’t too much of an imposition.
Alternately, the client can retry the query right away over TCP.
Infoblox Advanced DNS
Protection (ADP)
Advanced DNS Protection (ADP) is how Infoblox allows users to
navigate complex RRL configuration through a simplified graphi-
cal interface and apply rules targeted to specific attacks. Since
different attacks have specific DNS traffic patterns, ADP can let
you choose the attacks you want to focus on.
Targeting your RRL to specific attacks allows more legitimate

queries to get through and punishes the bad queriers more by
limiting their access to resources even further.
Additionally, Infoblox lets you push and modify these changes

across all the authoritative DNS Infoblox appliances at one time.
Figure 3-2 shows ADP working to block attacks.
FIGURE 3-2: Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection simplifies configuring

DNSSEC.
Pairing ADP with an Infoblox Reporting and Analytics Server adds
visibility to your security (see Figure 3-3). Being able to see attacks
and then adjust on the fly can be as important as stopping them
in many cases — especially against modern attackers willing to
change their attack profiles as soon as they meet resistance.
FIGURE 3-3: Reporting and analytics servers offer a window

into attempted attacks as they happen.
DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)

The lack of security in DNS has been a well-known issue for
decades, one that the DNS community has been trying to solve
since the late 1990s. These efforts resulted in the birth of the DNS
Security Extensions (DNSSEC).
DNSSEC basics
Take a look at what DNSSEC does and doesn’t provide:
»» DNSSEC provides answer validation. It does this through

the magic of public key cryptography. Public key crypto-
graphs use a pair of keys, one being public and one being
private, that allows a DNS server to validate that the answer
to a query came from the sender it says it did (in other
words, that the sender wasn’t spoofed) and that the
message content wasn’t changed during transmission. Keys
are used to “sign” zones, meaning to create a cryptographic
representation of the data that can only be turned back with
the other key. This provides both message authentication
and message integrity.
»» DNSSEC is backwards compatible. DNSSEC can be
deployed side-by-side with traditional DNS. If a domain is not
yet DNSSEC-enabled, a DNSSEC-aware name server falls
back to using traditional DNS.
»» DNSSEC doesn’t encrypt traffic. Although DNSSEC uses
both public and private keys, they’re only used for authenti-
cation purposes. Someone eavesdropping on the wire can
still see all the DNS messages in plaintext; it just becomes
nearly impossible to spoof.
DNSSEC requires deployment on both recursive name servers and

authoritative name servers: The recursive name servers ask for
additional security information and perform validation checks,
while authoritative name servers provide signed resource records
in responses. Figure 3-4 shows a simplified explanation of a
DNSSEC-aware recursive name server, also known as a validating
resolver, checking the answer it received.
In each step, the validating resolver asks for additional security

information, chasing up to the domain’s parent for more security
information if necessary, until it has reached the root server. The
root server’s public key is well known, and is the only key that is
trusted by the validating resolver in most cases.
Cache poisoning (discussed in Chapter 2) is a very difficult attack

to guard against, and its damage can be tremendous. When prop-
erly deployed, DNSSEC stops cache poisoning attacks because
attackers can no longer impersonate authoritative name servers.
In addition to stopping cache poisoning and other DNS-based

attacks, DNSSEC also bolsters other security features. Many orga-
nizations already publish anti-spam information such as SPF
(Sender Policy Framework) or DKIM (DomainKeys Identified
Mail) in DNS.
FIGURE 3-4: An example conversation between DNSSEC servers.
There are other security-related applications of DNS, as well. For

example, you can publish the SSH fingerprint of servers in DNS,
so when a user logs in to a machine via SSH, she can verify she’s
not being tricked to log in to a different machine. You can also
publish TLSA records, which contain information about your SSL
certificates, and when someone visits your website, he can verify
that his HTTPS connection has not been hijacked, and the cer-
tificate he received over HTTPS matches the one you published
in DNS.
Being able to authenticate DNS messages is a big step forward

not just for DNS, but also for the Internet as a whole, because
this would be the first time we have a global database that is
trustworthy.
Infoblox DNSSEC
Infoblox provides both DNSSEC validation and zone signing.
One-click signing and validation make this the simplest solution
for managing DNSSEC-signed zones.
Figure 3-5 shows the interface for configuring the DNSSEC set-

tings for an Infoblox Grid.
FIGURE 3-5: Scrolled-down view of the configuration screen.
After the global settings and DNSSEC are enabled, you can sign
zones with just one click. Figure 3-6 shows how to start signing
zones.
Infoblox also automates DNSSEC maintenance tasks, such as key

rollovers (importing and exporting keys), and sends email alerts
to remind administrators of important actions and due dates.
Figure 3-7 shows this.
FIGURE 3-6: Signing zones in Infoblox.
FIGURE 3-7: Automating maintenance tasks.
Response Policy Zones
Response policy zones (RPZs) are a way for you to control what
your queriers can and can’t look up using a recursive DNS server.
By understanding the reputation of the servers and services that
clients are querying, you can determine actions to take when the
recursive server receives queries for certain domain names or sees
information in the DNS responses that point to those malicious
servers.
RPZ basics
The overall idea of how RPZ works is that you can create poli-
cies for how to handle specific queries (or responses) and choose
which of a number of possible actions to take — like redirecting
the client to an internal security page — and store those policies
in special authoritative zones on your DNS servers. You can also
share these zones by transferring them from DNS server to DNS
server.
In order to create these RPZs, you need to understand the concept

of reputation. Reputation describes a zone’s history of offering
malicious content. Several reputation services track and analyze
the providers of malicious content. These services have the (for
most) unenviable task of chasing the bad guys, predicting their
next move, and even determining the algorithms they use to gen-
erate new bad domains. Thankfully, these services also publish
this reputation data for everyone else to use.
RPZs make policy data available in DNS zones. The policy data
is then transferred between servers using conventional DNS
protocols.
The resource records in the zone are expressions of DNS policy,

which apply to domain names with the NAME field (QNAMES)
or to the target data (RDATA). Note that the RDATA field in DNS
consists of one or more subfields carrying the actual payload for
a resource record.
The owner name of a RPZ QNAME policy resource record set

(RRSET) is the relative name of the domain triggering the fil-
ter. In the case where the policy zone is provided by Infoblox and
called rpz.infoblox.com, the policy affecting responses to nasty.
comelook.badsite.net would be attached to the domain name nasty.
comelook.badsite.net.rpz.infoblox.com. In this example, nasty.com-
elook.badsite.net is the site impacted. If all the FQDNs in badsite.net
were bad, the wildcard *.badsite.net.rpz.infoblox.com would catch
all subdomains under badsite.net.
The event that determines whether a query or response matches a

specific entry is called a trigger. We describe the possible triggers
in RPZ in the following sections.
QNAME trigger
The QNAME trigger operates on the NAME field of a query. A
wildcard format can block a site and all subdomains — for example,
*.badguys.com. The QNAME trigger should follow the full query
and response cycle, including iteration, if required. The recursive
server must follow the delegation hierarchy related to processing
name server (NS) resource records and corresponding A and AAAA
records.
IP trigger
The IP trigger matches on the IPv4 or IPv6 address in the RDATA
field of resource records in a DNS response. This is useful when
you know the IP address is bad, no matter what its name might
be. For example, if the known bad IP address is 10.11.12.13, and the
client queried for example.com MX record, if the answer contains
10.11.12.13, then the answer is blocked from the client.
IP trigger can be a double-edged sword. While it is very effec-

tive at blocking a known bad IP address, it will also block any
answer that contains that IP address. In the age of cloud comput-
ing, many websites may share the same IP address. If one of the
sites causes the IP address to be blacklisted, it could end up get-
ting every other site on the same IP address blocked.
Client IP trigger
The client IP trigger matches on the source IP address of the cli-
ent initiating a query. Since it matches a specific client IP address,
it is very targeted and is very effective when used to block hosts
that are known to be compromised. It can send all queries from a
single client to a remediation server, for example.
NSDNAME trigger
The NSDNAME trigger matches the name of the authoritative
name server found during recursion. This is an extremely pow-
erful trigger targeting an entire DNS name server. This trigger
affects all the domains served by the name server. Since the
NSDNAME trigger works during recursion, this trigger must be
used with extreme caution and only when an entire name server
is known to be malicious.
NSIP trigger
The NSIP trigger matches the IP addresses in IPv4 A records and
IPv6 AAAA records corresponding to name server records associ-
ated with domains (glue records). It checks these against NSD-
NAME policy records, which protects against name servers with
multiple or changing names. The NSIP trigger can block a name
server and all the domain names it serves.
RPZ responses
Once a trigger matches a record in a response policy zone, you can
take one of the four following policy actions:
»» NXDOMAIN: An RRset consisting of a single CNAME

whose target is the root domain “.” causing a response
of NXDOMAIN (“There is no such domain name.”).
»» NODATA: The RRset consists of a single CNAME whose
target is the wildcard top-level domain (.*), which results
in a response of NODATA (“There is no data of that type
attached to that domain name.”).
»» NO-OP/PASSTHRU: This RRset consists of a single CNAME
whose target is the query name itself and expresses an
exception preventing any policy action for the name. You can
think of this type of response as a “pass-through,” permitting
domain information to pass through a filter unencumbered.
Because a rule matched in the zone, you will see an entry in
the logs, providing information to the administrator.
»» Local data: An RRset matching the QTYPE of the original
query. In the event an RRset exists but does not match the
QTYPE of the query, the name server sends a NODATA
response.
If this section is of specific interest to you, much of the material
is from an Infoblox training course on RPZ. You can learn more
at https://www.infoblox.com/support/infoblox-education-
services/ or email startlearning@infoblox.com.
Infoblox DNS firewall

Infoblox’s DNS firewall brings you RPZ configuration and more.
The Infoblox Grid Architecture is particularly powerful when it
comes to RPZs, allowing you manage and control all your authori-
tative servers through one simple interface. Step-by-step wizards
simplify the complexity of maintaining rules for local RPZ zones.
See Figure 3-8.
FIGURE 3-8: Infoblox provides simple wizards that allow you to create your
own Response Policy Zones.
Infoblox provides reputation data with its Threat Intelligence

Feed products. While there are numerous feeds available, they
break down into four main categories:
»» Base feed: Protects against known malicious threats that are

dangerous as destinations.
»» Malware feed: Protects against known malicious threats
that can take control of your system.
»» Ransomware feed: Protects against attacks that encrypt
your data until you pay the attacker to decrypt it.
»» Bogon feed: Protects against bogons, bogus IP addresses,
which are commonly the source addresses of DDoS attacks.
Many ISPs and end-user firewalls filter and block bogons,
because they have no legitimate use, and usually are the
result of accidental or malicious misconfiguration.
Again, simplified wizards in Infoblox walk you through adding

these feeds to your members, as you see in Figure 3-9.
FIGURE 3-9: Infoblox provides simplified wizards to add your RPZ feed

information for all servers in your Infoblox Grid.
Additionally, Infoblox offers cloud-based RPZ feed management

through its Infoblox Security Portal. Here you can select the feeds
that best suit your needs and also assign which Grid members can
access them. See Figures 3-10 and 3-11.
FIGURE 3-10: Infoblox Security Portal allows you to self-administer your RPZ
Feed data through the Infoblox secure web portal.
FIGURE 3-11: The Infoblox Security allows you to manage all aspects of the
feeds your Grid requires.
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Hardening DNS infrastructure
»» Ensuring resiliency
»» Blocking communication with known

malicious sites
»» Leveraging response policy zone feeds
»» Sharing indicators of compromise (IoCs)
Chapter 4
Ten Keys to Improving
DNS Security
N
ow that you know the bases, this chapter discusses ten
actions you should put high on your priority list to protect
yourself.
Use Dedicated DNS Appliances

If you host your own DNS servers, make sure to use the right
hardware. Deploying DNS on general-purpose servers can be
risky because:
»» The default configurations are not set for DNS. Ports

associated with other services are open by default, and
therefore vulnerable to attack.
»» Users on general-purpose servers often have operating-
system-level account privileges on the server, including
administrator rights. Users with administrator rights can
create vulnerability, sometimes even accidentally.
CHAPTER 4 Ten Keys to Improving DNS Security 39
»» You have to apply time-consuming updates manually, and
that means downtime for maintenance windows. People
have a bad habit of putting off downtime, which is even
worse, because the servers are vulnerable to the attacks that
the updates would have protected against.
Instead, you should employ a dedicated DNS hardware appliance

or non-open-source DNS software.
Keep DNS Server Software Up-to-Date

As with any other computer application, service, or protocol, new
DNS vulnerabilities continuously crop up. Attackers dedicate a lot
of time to discovering these weaknesses and figuring out how to
exploit them.
That’s why keeping your DNS server software updated with the
current software versions and security updates is a job that you
can never permanently cross off your to-do list. Whether you find
a dedicated appliance that applies updates for you or have to apply
updates manually, you simply must stay on top of it.
Have an Onsite DNS Backup

Even if you outsource your DNS to a managed DSN service pro-
vider, you should host your own dedicated backup DNS server.
Neither Internet service providers nor managed DNS service pro-

viders are impervious to attack. In 2016, DNS service provider
DYN and Internet service provider Deutsche Telekom were both
victims of massive DDoS attacks that caused widespread outages.
A coordinated attack on your vendor isn’t the only reason to have

a backup. More commonly, hardware or network failures can
cause slow DNS performance or an outage.
Avoid Single Points of Failure
A single point of failure is a part of your network that, if it stops
working, shuts down the entire process. Eliminating single points
of failure throughout any system or network is a basic principle of
secure, resilient design.
One important way to avoid single points of failure is to have

multiple Internet links from different ISPs pointing to your web-
sites. By introducing different ISPs, you increase the authoritative
DNS servers that cache your links and reduce the risk of cache
poisoning diverting your visitors.
Run Authoritative DNS Servers

inside DMZs
If attackers manage to compromise an authoritative DNS server,
they can change the DNS data of any domain for which that server
is authoritative. The effect can be devastating. These changes
quickly replicate across the Internet and, in some cases, take days
to fix.
Stop these problems before they start by setting up your author-

itative DNS servers inside a secure network demilitarized zone
(DMZ). The DMZ allows the importing of DNS records only from a
secure primary server that is also located inside your DMZ.
Turn Off Recursion

As much as possible, you want to control who can ask your author-
itative DNS server for information. You can restrict zone trans-
fers to the specific IP addresses of your secondary DNS servers,
for example, to prevent attackers from getting hostnames and IP
addresses for your network. For another example, you can digi-
tally sign your zone transfer records to prove their authenticity.
Use Threat Intelligence
Threat intelligence is information about your network’s weak-
est points and the most likely attacks you are likely to receive.
You can use this information to make decisions and set priorities
about how to protect your company.
Use Response Policy Zones

A Response Policy Zone (RPZ) allows you to set policies for specific
domains. For example, when your DNS server receives a request
for an A record for a certain domain, you can create a policy to do
one of the following actions instead:
»» Return a nonexistent domain (NXDOMAIN) error.

»» Return no data at all.
»» Redirect the domain so that you can further observe and
analyze any malicious activity associated with the domain.
Use IPAM
As your network grows, even keeping visibility into everything
becomes a challenge. With an enterprise-grade IP Address Man-
agement (IPAM) solution, you can consolidate information about
your core network infrastructure into one comprehensive and
authoritative database. This solution lets you see your entire net-
work topology, including:
»» Network assets
»» IP addresses and switch ports
»» Virtual local area networks (VLANs)
»» Usernames
Automate Security Tasks
whenever Possible
Tasks that you can automate with DNS security software include
many common scenarios:
»» When your DNS security solution detects DNS-based data

exfiltration or malware from an infected host, it should notify
an endpoint security solution to clean the infected endpoint.
»» When a new device joins the network, your DNS security
solution should trigger a vulnerability scan.
»» Until the completion of the vulnerability scan and mediation
of any problems, your DNS security solution should trigger a
network access control (NAC) solution to prevent the
endpoint from getting on the network until it is compliant.
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»» It wouldn’t accept a response it received from a DNS server it

Unfortunately, I’ve been remiss in keeping DNS and BIND up to

—Cricket Liu, Chief DNS Architect and Senior Fellow at Infoblox

iv DNS Security For Dummies, Infoblox Special Edition

The Internet is the target of attacks by unethical people. These

We have a passion for just that kind of protection. That’s why we

About This Book

Icons Used in This Book

Whenever you see a Remember icon, make a mental note about

The Technical Stuff icon marks extra-technical reading. You can

The Tip icon points out information that’s handy to know

This icon points out some dangers to be on the lookout for.

Beyond the Book

2 DNS Security For Dummies, Infoblox Special Edition

»» Discovering how DNS works

»» Reviewing types of resource records

»» Understanding queries, recursion, and

This amazing capability comes from the Domain Name System, or

Perhaps a more modern example would be to compare DNS to the

CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 3

At the dawning of the Internet, or as it was known back then,

As the number of machines quickly grew, people thought it would

Back then, if you wanted to translate a name to an IP address, you

This centralized system quickly proved unscalable. Computer sci-

In 1983, Mockapetris published the first standards documents in

4 DNS Security For Dummies, Infoblox Special Edition

FIGURE 1-2: Like the branches of a tree, each

CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 5

Name resolution is the process of following these delegations of

This allows a company like “Example,” shown in Figure 1-2, to

Authority and Zones

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»» Name: A domain name in which this resource record pertains.

Although all resource records share a common overall structure,

To understand resource records, you need to understand the

CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 7

There can be more than one resource record associated with an

Common Resource Records

»» We omitted the CLASS field because, for all common record

FIGURE 1-3: The RDATA field in an A record contains the IP address of the

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The timers that appear in the RDATA field are:

»» Refresh: How often a secondary server should contact the

Figures 1-5 and 1-6 show a sample SOA record.

FIGURE 1-5: An SOA lookup returns a lot of information in the RDATA field

CHAPTER 1 DNS 101 9

»» CNAME records map additional names back to a hostname,

Query Path, Recursion, and Iteration

It’s important to understand what we mean when we say a client

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When a client asks a question, it is unable to follow referrals given

Recursion is the process repeatedly asking the question to name

An iterative name query is typically sent by DNS servers to other