How to Avoid the New DNS Hijacking Attacks

DNS Hijacking has been around for a while. Initially it began as a way for the bad guys to take you to a fake website so that your credit card info could be stolen, or so that you could be loaded with malware. But that’s changed to the point where you might never know that your internet sessions have been hijacked, and that your credentials have been stolen, despite using safeguards such as SSL. In some cases, even VPN sessions may not be enough to protect you. What’s happening is that the threat actors are manipulating your organization’s DNS records so that your users will find themselves going to a site operated by the malicious parties, and from there, will be directed to the site they originally intended to visit. As the traffic passes through the bogus site, the threat actors harvest your user credentials from the traffic before passing it along. Because many organizations use SSL to protect their traffic, the bad guys will also steal your SSL certificates so that their site can masquerade as your legitimate destination. There have been two recent campaigns carrying out this sort of attack. The first, found in late 2018 was called DNSpionage, and resulted in warnings from the Department of Homeland Security.