DUBAI, UAE, 5th August, 2015—Infoblox
Inc., the network control company, today released the second quarter
2015 report for the Infoblox DNS Threat Index, powered by IID, the
source for clear cyberthreat intelligence. The index hit a record high
of 133—up 58 percent from the second quarter of 2014—due to a surge in phishing attacks.
The Infoblox DNS Threat Index (www.infoblox.com/dns-threat-
The single
biggest factor driving the second-quarter increase, according to
analysis of the data by IID and Infoblox, is the creation of malicious
domains for phishing attacks. Phishing, a time-tested weapon of
cybercriminals, involves sending emails that point users to fake web
sites—mimicking a bank’s home page, for example, or a company’s employee portal—to collect confidential information such as account names and passwords or credit-card numbers.
Another
significant contributor to the index’s record high is the growing demand
for exploit kits. These packages of malicious software are typically
hidden on web sites that appear to be innocuous, but download malware
whenever a user visits—even if the user takes no action.
The Infoblox DNS
Threat Index, which is the first security report to analyze the
creation of malicious domains, has a baseline of 100—the
average of quarterly results for the years 2013 and 2014. In the first
quarter of 2015, the index stood at 122, and has now jumped an
additional 11 points to a record high of 133 in the second quarter.
DNS is the address book of the Internet, translating domain names such as www.google.com
into machine-readable Internet Protocol (IP) addresses such as
74.125.20.106. Because DNS is required for almost all Internet
connections, cybercriminals are constantly creating new domains to
unleash a variety of threats that can leverage DNS, ranging from simple
malware to exploit kits, phishing, distributed denial of service (DDoS)
attacks, and data exfiltration.
“DNS is critical
infrastructure for the Internet that can’t be turned off. Through our
analysis, it’s apparent that cybercriminals recognize this and see DNS
as a vector for penetrating government, corporate, and personal
networks,” said Rod Rasmussen, chief technology officer at IID. “The
Infoblox DNS Threat Index, powered by IID, is intended to give insight
into the extent to which bad actors are leveraging DNS for illicit
activities.”
“DNS sits at the center of the Internet, connecting people, applications, and devices—making
DNS a powerful tool for protecting networks as well as penetrating
them,” said Craig Sanderson, senior director of security products at
Infoblox. “Organizations can enhance their security by acquiring and
understanding DNS threat intelligence data, then using that data to
block access to malicious domains.”
The full
Infoblox DNS Threat Index report for the second quarter of 2015 is
available for free, with no registration required, at www.infoblox.com/dns-threat-
