The sophistication of hackers and state-level tools and technology used to perpetrate cybercrime is increasing in the post-pandemic age. The use of URL (web) filtering and DNS filtering to prevent malicious information from ever reaching your users is a critical step in averting such assaults.
With these safeguards in place against the Internet’s risks, the attack surface is greatly reduced, and the system is protected against ever-increasing cyber threats.
Both DNS filtering and URL filtering methods function with the support of Web Reputation Services. These services evaluate websites and provide a risk score based on the traffic of users, the threat history of pages on the domain, the age of observation, the geographic location, related networks, internal and external linkages, as well as other patterns in the context.
On the other hand, not everyone is certain about whether using DNS or URL filtering is a preferable security strategy. It might be challenging to decide on the correct combination of technologies for your security stack. It’s true that both DNS and URL filtering offer advantages that should be coupled for total web security when it comes to blocking shady emails and dubious websites.
DNS Filtering
Nowadays enterprises tend to focus first and foremost on web and email traffic protection, whereas DNS is generally disregarded. DNS traffic is a critical component of allowing web browsing, however due to its dispersed structure and usage of the UDP protocol to provide requests and replies, DNS is vulnerable to particular sorts of assaults.
In a newly uncovered assault campaign, attackers utilised DuckDNS, a free dynamic DNS service that permits the registration of subdomains and record maintenance through scripts, to register malicious subdomains that would enable the renowned NanoCore, Netwire, and Async RAT (Remote Access Tool) malware. URLs supplied by email resolved to a download server or to Command & Control (C2) servers for RATs.
DNS filtering is essential for your security for several reasons, including this type of assault. When it comes to DDoS assaults, IoT devices, which primarily rely on the DNS protocol, are regularly compromised by botnets. DNS filtering protects IoT devices from exploitation by blocking requests to rogue DNS servers.
Malware, phishing, DNS hijacking and tunnelling, and other forms of attacks may be effectively thwarted with correctly set and dynamically updated DNS filtering. Using Perimeter 81’s powerful DNS filtering with zero administration gives an extra layer of protection to your network in just a few simple steps.
SWG URL Filtering
URL filtering is a useful complement to DNS filtering in a number of ways. Your security solution must handle these issues, which DNS filtering alone may leave unattended.
Granularity
Web (URL) Filtering is a feature of Perimeter 81’s new Secure Web Gateway. While DNS filtering focuses on banning domains, URL filtering allows you to safeguard users by preventing access to individual URLs. In addition, in contrast to DNS filtering, URL filtering focuses on HTTP/HTTPS traffic and offers user-centric rules for permitting, warning, or prohibiting access to web categories or individual URLs.
A real “zero trust” approach to Internet access is made possible by URL filtering, which permits more specific application of online access regulations.
Point of Repression
With the support of TLS inspection, which permits insight into encrypted HTTPS traffic, URL filter rules will safeguard and monitor employees even when they are not connected to the corporate network. By banning websites such as malware and fraudulent sites, IT administrators may take a proactive action to thwart malware downloads and phishing efforts.
DNS over HTTPS
The DNS over HTTPS (DoH) protocol employs HTTPS to encrypt DNS communication and has been gaining greater popularity. DNS communication cannot be falsified using this protocol since it uses HTTPS, but DNS filtering tools cannot see it. This traffic is examined via URL filtering.
Anti-Malware Software
In addition, a comprehensive Secure Web Gateway integrates URL filtering with an anti-malware engine, which stops malware at the point of entrance. Malware detection skills are vital, safeguarding consumers from dangerous assaults on the Internet.
These assaults may swiftly proliferate through the corporate network, infecting one host after another. Users and hosts will be protected from infection at the point of entry using a Secure Web Gateway, which includes URL screening and Malware Protection.
URL versus DNS filtering table
So to summarise, the ideal security strategy is to use a Secure Web Gateway to activate DNS and URL filtering simultaneously.
A deeper degree of security and control is provided by URL web filtering rather than DNS filtering, which protects against malicious sites and all traffic. Using URL filtering in conjunction with anti-malware traffic inspection as part of a Secure Web Gateway increases the flexibility of granularly defining access restrictions to specific websites.
The best method to safeguard your firm from cyber threats is by integrating both DNS filtering and URL web filtering for overall network security, greatly lowering the attack surface and limiting the likelihood of malware, ransomware and other assaults.
