In Security and Test Management | Last updated: November 30, 2022

Cloudways offers managed cloud hosting for any size business to host a website or complex web applications.

How to Test DNS Security Risk & Fix to Avoid Being Hacked?

Having a misconfigured domain can lead to sensitive information leakage or exposure to security risk where an attacker can take advantage of it.

When we talk about securing a web application, mostly we focus on layer 3, 4 & 7 protection and ignore doing anything on a domain level.

One should consider doing everything it takes to secure online business at every layer to protect brands, business reputation & financial loss. In my previous post, I mentioned tools to check DNS health for troubleshooting, and some of you asked about testing security, so here you go.

How do you ensure your DNS/domain is secure from online threats?

There are multiple ways.

Using registrar provides the highest level of security but it comes with the price.
Using a cloud-based security provider that provides web securing including domain.
You can test your domain with the following tools to find out the security state and take necessary action if any vulnerability found.

Let’s explore the available tools…

DNS Zone Transfer

A quick way to find out if the respective name server is vulnerable to DNS zone transfer. Here is how the test result looks like.

Searching for name servers of domain geekflare.com ...
Found name server: olga.ns.cloudflare.com.
Found name server: todd.ns.cloudflare.com.

Attempting zone transfer against name server: olga.ns.cloudflare.com....
Trying "geekflare.com"
Using domain server:
Name: olga.ns.cloudflare.com.
Address: 2400:cb00:2049:1::adf5:3a89#53
Aliases: 

Host geekflare.com not found: 1(FORMERR)
; Transfer failed.

Attempting zone transfer against name server: todd.ns.cloudflare.com....
Trying "geekflare.com"
Using domain server:
Name: todd.ns.cloudflare.com.
Address: 2400:cb00:2049:1::adf5:3b92#53
Aliases: 

Host geekflare.com not found: 1(FORMERR)
; Transfer failed.

As you can see “Transfer failed” which means it’s not vulnerable. Having zone details exposed can help an attacker to gather sub-domains and other information.

DNSSEC Test

Most of the online tool tests if a domain is compliant with DNSSEC or not. However, if you need to analyze in detail for debugging purposes, then this analyzer by Verisign will be useful.

Hacker Target

A zone transfer is quite a normal process between two servers – primary and secondary. It is done to synchronize the domain records. But if an attacker collects all these DNS records and exploits them; its real trouble.

With the help of the Zone Transfer Online Test by Hacker Target, you can check whether your DNS records are vulnerable or not.

Additionally, Hacker Transfer also provides a Zone Transfer API which is a straightforward way of fetching results on zone transfer that attackers attempted. You can check up to 100 queries a day with its free plan. If you wish to increase the number of queries, you can go for Enterprise plans.

Recursive DNS Resolver Test

Detect if IP or domain is vulnerable to DNS amplification attacks.

ImmuniWeb

Test your security anytime with Domain Security Test by ImmuniWeb. It can monitor dark web exposure, domain squatting, trademark infringement, and phishing as well as detection.

After the scan, you would be able to see what cybercriminals see in order to understand your weak points. Next, you can prioritize those points and troubleshoot them.

You can also keep monitoring your security to mitigate possible threats using this tool. ImmuniWeb utilizes advanced AI technology in its dark web monitoring and attack surface management. Its application penetration testing also uses AI and DevSecOps.

ImmuniWeb complies with regulations like HIPAA, PCI, FISMA, ISO 27001, and more.

Conclusion

DNS or domain security is important and I hope the above helps tools help you to test your domain for potential risk.