We’ve adapted incredibly to using technology for everything we do. We trust technology to get our jobs done, from getting directions to the newest restaurant to doing taxes and buying birthday presents. Often, we forget that the internet is still kind of like the Wild West. You’re probably familiar with the websites you visit regularly, but when you start venturing out of your comfort zone, one wrong click could bring you to uncharted, dangerous territory.
In general, people are more trusting of technology and more comfortable sharing information online than they were ten years ago. Additionally, cyberattacks continue to get trickier. Hackers keep getting smarter at setting up schemes and making malicious websites look legitimate. This combination of more trusting internet users and more crafty hackers can indicate a greater cyberattack opportunity. If you’re a business leader or owner, how do you keep employees, equipment, and data safe?
Cybersecurity works in layers to help keep businesses safe. DNS Filtering, an essential layer in any cybersecurity solution, helps keep you safe by blocking access to known malicious or inappropriate websites via the Domain Name System (DNS). According to Webroot, effective DNS Filtering can stop up to 88% of internet-borne malware before it even reaches the network. More often than not, cyberattacks are initiated by regular technology users who accidentally click over to the wrong website, share sensitive information, or download a malicious file. DNS Filtering helps prevent users from making these types of bad clicks by preventing access to dangerous websites.
In this blog, we’ll illustrate everything you need to know about DNS Filtering, including:
- What DNS Filtering does
- How DNS Filtering works
- Why you should be implementing DNS Filtering as part of your company’s security and cybersecurity plans
What Is DNS Filtering?
Filters help keep the bad stuff out of the things we use and depend on every day. Think about all the things you use during your day, and how many of them have a filter: water filters, coffee filters, an oil filter in your car, etc. Filters remove unwanted, dangerous, or toxic materials for your safety.
DNS Filters work in a similar way to prevent access to known malicious or inappropriate websites—they have a specific set of criteria to prevent the bad stuff from coming through to your web browser.
Understanding the Domain Name System (DNS)
To understand DNS filters, you first need to get a grasp on what DNS is.
You remember phone books, right? You’d probably find one on your doorstep once or twice a year, and it had a list of people and businesses in your city, matching the names with phone numbers so you could quickly look them up. DNS kind of works like that, except with computers, websites, and IP addresses.
As a more 21st century example, think about the contacts list on your cell phone. You probably have a bunch of names and numbers in your contacts, and while you can remember people’s names, you probably only know a handful of important numbers off the top of your head. Just like the telephone system depends on a series of area codes and telephone numbers, the internet depends on domain names and IP addresses to locate and download web resources.
What does DNS do?
Similar to your phone book or contacts list, DNS translates the practical domain name everyone is familiar with, like hightouchtechnologies.com, to an IP address, which is a series of numbers that looks something like 104.215.148.63 (IPv4). Just like it’s easier to type Grandma Alice into your phone to wish her a happy birthday, it’s easier to type facebook.com into your web browser than it is to recall and type a long numerical IP address.
Like calling someone in your phone’s contacts, this DNS lookup and resolution processes happen quickly behind the scenes. It’s during this process where the DNS Filtering layer of cybersecurity comes into play.
How Does DNS Filtering Work?
DNS Filtering happens before you download any actual content from a website during the DNS lookup stage. The filter references a known list of domain names and IP addresses to safeguard you from accessing known malicious or inappropriate content. Your cybersecurity provider who sets up DNS Filtering for your company typically uses a predefined list of domain names and IP addresses, combined with customized settings.
The DNS Filter works by blocking access to the specific website, and instead, it displays a block page that explains why you can’t access a particular website.
Example of DNS Filtering in action
For example, imagine someone at your company receives a convincing phishing email and they click through to a link that leads to a known malicious website. Before your coworker can load the website, the DNS Filter realizes that the phishing website is on the block list. Instead of allowing access, the DNS resolver prevents the website page from loading, and instead, it displays a block screen that says something like “Page Blocked, Reason: Phishing.”
Instead of allowing the hacker to take advantage of your coworker to gain access to sensitive, private information, the DNS Filter recognized the phishing attack based on the domain name and shut it down.
By implementing proactive tools and best practices for cybersecurity, you can save your organization significant time and financial resources spent recovering from a potential breach.
4 Common Sense Reasons for Implementing DNS Filtering
1. Reduce risk for your company
When properly configured, DNS Filtering is incredibly effective at preventing malware, phishing, and other types of computer viruses or cyberattacks. More often than not, cyberattacks are, unfortunately, a result of user error. DNS Filtering helps make it more difficult for cybercriminals to take advantage of your company by restricting access to known malicious and inappropriate websites.
2. Restrict websites accessible from company-managed networks.
The internet is a vast place with a wide variety of content. Depending on your industry or clientele, there’s probably a lot of content that you don’t want employees to access at work or content that you don’t want clients accessing through your guest network. DNS Filtering can prevent access to inappropriate or productivity-killing websites.
3. Secure your company’s data.
Plainly, without DNS Filtering, your company is more vulnerable to a cyberattack. DNS Filtering is an essential layer to any company’s cybersecurity solution, no matter its size or the industry. You can’t always rely on best use practices— cybercriminals prey on the unsuspecting. DNS filtering helps take the human error out of the equation by blocking known malicious and inappropriate websites.
4. Make things easier for your internal IT staff.
Tracking down cyberthreats on your own and recovering from cyberattacks is time-consuming and expensive for your business. All that time spent cleaning up after a cyberattack by IT staff takes them away from other important aspects of your business. Adding a DNS Filtering layer to your cybersecurity solution helps ensure your business operates safely, and your IT staff can focus on supporting the business.
We Help Keep Business Safe.
As a technology partner, High Touch provides security and cybersecurity solutions to help keep businesses safe. Click here to learn more about what it takes to build a multilayered cybersecurity solution. If you’re looking for more detailed information, or if you’re ready to discuss what a comprehensive security solution could look like for your business, contact us.
