The notion that you can defend yourself against all malware is absurd, especially given that malware is a catch-all term that does not refer to any particular exploit, vector, objective, or methodology. There is no magic solution that will thwart every attack since the variety and breadth of cyber dangers are so great. As a result, it won't be long until your network environment is compromised, putting you in a position where you must make some extremely difficult choices.
Successful cyberattacks, for instance, in the medical industry have significant legal and reputational ramifications in addition to affecting an organisation's capacity to function. These factors lead to medical business victims paying ransomware demands more frequently than those in any other sector. Healthcare institutions might save an average of $10.1 million per event avoided if they could spot warning signs of issues before they develop into full-blown attacks.
None of the security solutions can completely stop all threats at the gate; instead, they each focus on a particular subset of malware and/or penetration pathways. Even if they could, the gate is occasionally completely skipped. As demonstrated by the Log4J exploit and the most recent compromise of the well-known Ctx Python package, "trusted" resource libraries hosted on websites like GitHub can be attacked by outside parties and used to disseminate malware payloads to a large number of endpoints without raising any alarm bells right away.
Threats are present everywhere, not just online. By using the healthcare sector as an example once more, we can illustrate a different attack vector that can bypass all of your perimeter security: physical access. The majority of hospitals, doctors' offices, pharmacies, and other healthcare institutions rely on networked terminals and gadgets that are unintentionally left in locations where patients, visitors, or other unauthorised users can access them. In these circumstances, it makes little difference how well your network is protected from external attacks because a malicious party only needs to insert a USB stick or use a logged-in device to access malware, which compromises the network from within.
Despite the fact that it may appear hopeless, there is one characteristic that unites the vast majority of malware: a weakness known as the Domain Name System (DNS). In the fight against cyber threats, DNS is a crucial choke point because more than 91% of malware leverages DNS connectivity at some stage in the attack life cycle.
A malware infection initially seeks to avoid detection when it enters your network. During this period, it leverages the network environment as a reconnaissance phase in an effort to expand to other devices, find important resources, and compromise backup storage.
This is also the time that the malware has to contact the command-and-control (C2) system of the hackers to get instructions and report the network-related data it has discovered. It must submit a request to a domain name server, like all other Internet traffic, in order to communicate with the outside world. Network administrators can use a protective DNS solution to monitor DNS traffic for signs of malicious behaviour and then take action by blocking, quarantining, or otherwise interfering with it.
Unfortunately, due to the constant development of new threats and the constant possibility of a physically initiated attack, businesses must be ready for the inevitable successful penetration of their networks. The use of DNS communication by malware, however, is nearly inevitable once it has gained access to your network. In order to render the virus inert and enable you to get started on cleaning up your systems and strengthening your defenses for the next time, a defensive DNS solution can identify these unusual requests and completely stop them.
