Benefits of Sinkholing#

Sinkholing is a process of rerouting DNS traffic away from malicious domains to a safe location. This technique can be used to protect users from phishing attacks, malware, and other types of online threats. Sinkholing can also be used to collect data about malicious activity on the internet. In this blog post, we will discuss the benefits of sinkholing and how it can be used to improve internet security.

What are the benefits of sinkholing?#

A sinkhole is simply a router that accepts and analyzes malicious traffic. Sinkholes can be utilized to perform a number of things such as taking attention away from a target, keeping an eye on worm traffic, and keeping track of other harmful traffic.

You can also benefit from sinkholes to stop an exploited server from interacting back with the attacker. Additionally, a sinkhole can be utilized to stop a worm-infected machine from infecting other computers in your system.

What is a DNS sinkhole?#

The DNS sinkhole is a method similar to DNS spoofing in that it responds to a DNS query with an IP address that does not resolve to the true IP address. The distinction is that DNS sinkholes especially target common malicious domains, like those involved with a botnet, and provide an IP address that either does not resolve well or resolves to a specific address configured by the administrators.

How DNS sinkholes aid in network security#

DNS sinkholes can be used when a domain is distributing malicious data and numerous workstations in your network are trying to connect to that site.

You won’t know which machines are contaminated unless they try to resolve that domain name, but if they do, they may be able to communicate with the malicious site and may install further malware that will make removal more difficult. You can simply detect which workstations are compromised if you establish a DNS sinkhole to redirect a malicious website to a particular server.

Because the attackers will not receive input from the compromised hosts, you may prevent them from advancing the compromise.

Conclusion#

As we already learned, sinkholing is an effective technique used to mitigate malicious and abusive traffic by routing it to an internal server or dropping it altogether. You can utilize sinkholes to resolve many issues such as worms, command and control servers, and remote attacks on a single system within the local network. Upon completion of this page, now you know how you can benefit from sinkholing technique to strengthen and secure your network systems.

See also

Do you want to get practical skills to work in cybersecurity or advance your career? Enrol in MCSI Bootcamps