Forget the Tax Man: Time for a DNS Security Audit

The DDoS attack against DNS provider Dyn that took out large swaths of the Internet put a million-candle spotlight on the issue of the availability, and proved that proper DNS management is not just an IT issue, but a security mandate as well. Maintaining website availability and preventing revenue loss from associated outages depends upon good DNS hygiene, maintenance, and control.

DNS tends to be a set-and-forget type of technology... and that can pose problems several years after everything has been forgotten, according to Chris Roosenraad, director of product management for DNS service at Neustar.

[Check out "Protect Your DNS Services Against Security Threats" during Interop ITX, May 15-19, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. To learn more about DNS security, other Interop security tracks, or to register, click on the live links.].

Roosenraad -- who has more than two decades of security, networking and public policy expertise, having previously developed the DNS architecture for Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable -- says that DNS audits sound more foreboding than they actually are. This is not necessarily some big, scary compliance activity. It is just a way of accounting for all of the DNS infrastructure configuration to ensure that things haven't gotten out of sync with changing business realities. 

"It's just a process of taking some away from the 30 other multitasking things that we all have in front of us to sit down and say, 'Is this what I really want my Internet presence to be?'" he says.

How to begin the process? Here are five essential steps to conducting a successful DNS audit.