WikiLeaks suffers from a DoS attack, but how safe is your business from the same fate?
This week we have seen a very high-profile website (WikiLeaks) suffer from a DoS (Denial of Service) attack on its DNS (Domain Name Services) servers. The result of the attack was to make the entire site unavailable and forced the site admin to move their site and DNS records to alternative servers.
This begs the question, as a business owner or IT SysAdmin what actions have you taken to ensure your online part of business doesn't suffer the same fate?
So often is the case that a SME company will host there website with their web design company who in turn hosts your site with many others on the one server. This includes your DNS records. So if that servers suffers a similar DoS attack your website is unavailable and although your mail server could be elsewhere you no longer get any email because the Mail Exchange (MX) records are also unavailable.
Is there a solution?
There is nothing wrong with leaving your DNS and Domain hosted with your web designer and web hosting company but as part of a disaster recovery plan it is good practice to ensure those records are mirrored (backed up) on more than one server. Your web designer maybe already be doing this for you on a second server but the chances are the second server is in the same location as the first and therefore would also become unavailable during the DoS attack.
The answer would be to mirror your DNS records on servers in different location. For example Prolateral offer's a secondary DNS (backup DNS) service that mirrors your records from a specified source server and then hosts your domain on name servers located across the globe (UK, Europe, USA, Australia) to provide a truly global fault-tolerant solution. These servers will continue to answer domain name queries even when your server doesn't.
Prolateral can help you
You would think that for this peace-of-mind security you would need to budget a small fortune each year but you may be surprised to know that a backup DNS service only costs £6.00 (ex VAT) a year.
If you would like more information on backup DNS then click here. If you would like to discuss your DNS, Domain Name or Website safety then give us a call or even request a call back.
About Prolateral
Prolateral Consulting is in business to put your organisation back in control of your own Information Technology, specialising in information and messaging security, computer forensic services, and disaster recovery planning.
Contact Info
Prolateral Consulting Ltd
Luton, Bedfordshire, UK
Tel : +44 (0) 8450 763760
Email :
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