"Nearly Three-Quarters of Firms Suffer Downtime from DNS Attacks"

Researchers at IDC compiled interviews with over 100 global organizations with more than 500 employees and put their findings in the "2022 Global DNS Threat Report." During the research, the researchers found that hybrid working and cloud migration during the course of the pandemic has led to a surge in DNS-related attacks, with application downtime and data theft a significant consequence.  The researchers also found that 88% of organizations suffered DNS-related attacks over the past year, at an average of seven per responding company.  These include DNS tunneling, phishing, malware, zero-day exploits, DDoS attacks, DNS hijacking, and cloud misconfiguration abuse.  All categories saw an increase in the frequency of attacks over the previous year.  The researchers stated that IT teams often overlook the DNS layer because firewalls are set to allowlist traffic.  However, its near ubiquity in modern IT environments and insecure design make it a popular vector for attack.  According to the NCSC, almost all cyberattacks use DNS at some point in their lifecycle.  The researchers argued that the risks associated with DNS have only grown during the pandemic.  The researchers stated that the survey results show that the number and size of DNS-related attacks remain very high, and cybercriminals are using all available tools to gain access to networks, disrupt operations, and steal data by leveraging vulnerabilities and cloud misconfigurations.  Some 70% of respondents said they suffered application downtime due to DNS attacks, both related to in-house and cloud-based applications.  A quarter (24%) had customer data or sensitive IP stolen.  Succesful DNS attacks cost victims on average $942,000 per attack.  This is virtually unchanged from the $950,000 cited in last year's report.

Infosecurity reports:  "Nearly Three-Quarters of Firms Suffer Downtime from DNS Attacks"