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.
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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.