As technology advances, opportunities for cybercriminal online activity are increasing. Cyber criminals pose as legitimate businesses and access cookie information on your computer or device intended for marketing and advertising purposes. By retrieving personal information including passwords and financial information, anyone can anonymously commit online crimes including system hacking and identity theft. To combat this problem, Farsight Security, Inc. has announced the debut of its newly developed flagship Security Information Exchange (SIE). With the addition of four new security technologies using “Domain Name System” (DNS), Farsight raises the bar for protection against cyber attacks.
“Nothing happens on the Internet, whether for good or ill, without DNS “” the Domain Name System. With proper data conservation, DNS can be an extremely rich source of information on Internet-related crime. Last year, we released Newly Observed Domains to provide real-time insights on new domains since most new domain names are created for malicious intent, then quickly used and thrown away,” said Dr. Paul Vixie, Farsight Security CEO. “Farsight Security was founded by the world’s foremost DNS experts and we operate the world’s largest DNS telemetry network “” the Security Information Exchange. Today, we’re announcing a deeper version of Newly Observed Domains, as well as three related SIE broadcast channels, to help our customers get better visibility and leverage on criminal use of the Internet.”
Described as “the world’s largest threat intelligence information technology platform”, SIE identifies and protects from cybercriminal online activity using over 500 global sensors and streaming over 200,000 new observations per second. To take online security to the next level, the following technologies will be added to the platform:
*Newly Observed Hostnames: Tracks new hostnames, or fully qualified domain names (FQDNs), when they are first unveiled. This real-time knowledge allows organizations to watch for and discover infringing domains and malicious host names targeting their users.
*DNS Changes: Tracks changes to domain name configurations, such as when a new domain is created or an existing domain moves to a new IP address, uses different name servers, or migrates to IPv6. This real-time knowledge on a host-by-host basis enables operational capabilities to detect domain hijacking and unexpected DNS changes.
*DNS Errors: Tracks the domain names people are trying to resolve but cannot. This real-time knowledge includes all available data about unsuccessful DNS queries, including the SERVFAIL and REFUSED messages, that is otherwise difficult to obtain for the operational monitoring of name servers.
*NXDomains: Tracks the “No Such Domain” responses people get when failing to reach domains. This real-time knowledge provides the ability to empirically characterize user mistakes and identify potentially valuable brand protection opportunities with similar domain names.
“Domain Name System (DNS) activity reveals much about domain registration and host resolution patterns that can provide valuable threat indicators. Farsight Security provides this insight to enterprises, with ability to handle and serve large data sets backed by leadership with long experience in DNS expertise. Today’s announcement further demonstrates its commitment to capitalizing on these strengths to help its customers enhance and expand threat defense,” said Scott Crawford, Research Director, Information Security, 451 Research.
Farsight is debuting the launch of these added capabilities at Black Hat USA 2015 on August 1-6, 2015 at the Mandalay Bay Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. For more information, visit FarsightSecurity.com.
