Major media site hacked
Not that long ago, the New York Times website was subject to a successful hacking attempt which resulted in an outage for almost 24 hours. The mastermind behind the hacking was the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a group of enthusiastic Syrian youths with a mission to embarrass media organisations in the United States and Europe for their massive distortion of the facts about the uprising in Syria.
Any visitor to the New York Times site could only view a static screenshot depicting the SEA logo and text stating ‘Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army’. In effect, the real website was invisible to the world. Before finding out how SEA managed to paralyse the Times, reflect on these questions:
‘How is it possible for a world-class and renowned corporation to be hacked?’
‘If this can happen to the New York Times, then how safe is the website of my own small business?’
The answer to the first question is plain and simple: it did. The answer to the second: as safe as you make it. And that’s where the problem lies. How well-protected and secure is your website from cybercriminal activity? What’s to stop a hacker from redirecting visitors to your site to an adult site or pages equally offensive? To cut a long story short, nothing.
Changing DNS records
The Domain Name System (DNS) is an essential component of the internet. Without getting too technical, the DNS translates domain names into numerical IP addresses necessary for allocating pages and sites on the web. Using a phishing email, the SEA attackers were able to change the records of the New York Times DNS and redirect visitors to a Syrian website with the landing page showing the aforementioned screenshot. That easy and that simple.
The bad news is that a hacker can easily and simply target your business website in the same way. Unlike people, who communicate using letters and words, computers use numbers. An easy-to-read URL such as nytimes.com needs to be numerically assigned on the web and this assignment is achieved via a DNS. Put simply, the DNS links a URL with a numerical IP address. When a hacker accesses your DNS records, they can link your website to a different IP address. So when somebody searches for your site using your URL, they end up … who knows, that’s at the mercy of the hacker.
The good news for small businesses… for now
There is good news. For the moment, the websites of small businesses fly under the radar of hackers and are rarely targeted. Hackers take greater delight in disrupting large operations. For instance, LinkedIn was recently redirected to a domain sales page. Innocent, harmless fun? Not likely, especially when your reputation and bank balance are at stake.
But the good news is only for now. There may be no immediate reason to prioritise securing your DNS but many tech experts are of the opinion that DNS vulnerability is an area that cybercriminals will target in the not too distant future. Helmi Noman, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, University of Toronto, predicts that SEA will continue to look for spot spots to exploit in the wake of the New York Times hacking episode. Norman makes this general remark about DNS security:
“It’s not just what they want to do or could do; it’s what are the available vulnerabilities out there,” he said.
Go with a reputable registrar
With the security of your IT infrastructure at the forefront, you probably purchased your domain name from a reliable and reputable registrar such as GoDaddy, 1&1, Krystal or Bluehost. Clearly, you’ll select foolproof passwords to access your domain through the registrar. Also, you need to go through several login stages: access the registrar client area, then to the web hosting control panel such as cPanel and finally to your website content management system such as WordPress. This all adds to the security of your website and IT systems. Nevertheless, the recent DNS demise was much more than a run of the mill password hack.
In the New Your Times and LinkedIn attacks, it was the security of the registrars that was compromised. Without getting technical, the hackers were able to manipulate any DNS record within the registrar’s directory. What is particularly alarming is that the registrars that were preyed upon had a solid reputation serving well-known and established international corporations. For example, the New York Times, Twitter and the Huffington Post are all registered with the hosting company Melbourne IT. LinkedIn and United Airways are registered with Network Solutions. Both providers were believed to be secure from hacking and other forms of cybercrime.
Use a registry lock
You can’t get away from purchasing your domain name and hosting your site through a registrar. However, a registry lock will make your website much more secure. Applying a registry lock means that if somebody wants to make even the most mundane change to your registrar account, this cannot be achieved without manual intervention by a staff registrar. Using a registry lock will probably increase your monthly hosting subscription, but it’s a worthwhile investment in the security of your website and IT network.
A good start is to contact your registrar and inquire able the availability of registry locks and other additional security measures that they have on offer. They may suggest implementing two-step authentication, which requires another verification factor besides your login credentials to access your site files and pages. You can also use IP dependent logins that will limit access to your account from anywhere outside one particular IP address.
Money well spent
Your operation depends on a fully-functional and secure website as part of your IT infrastructure, no matter what line of business you are in. Although using registry locks, IP dependent logins and multi-fact authentication mean that your account access is limited, it is money and time well spent on securing your files, data and site. You may not be able to access your website from remote locations but at least you know visitors are seeing what should be seen – how your products and services can make a meaningful difference. Secure your DNS today and rest easy tonight.
