Categories: Technology

Our colleague Brian Cesaratto at Epstein Becker Green has a post on the Health Law Advisor Blog that will be of interest to our readers in the technology industry: "Harden Your Organization’s Domain Name System (DNS) Security to Protect Against Damaging Data Loss and Insider Threat."

Following is an excerpt:

Although there is no specific mention of DNS in HIPAA, the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, the GDPR or State cybersecurity laws or regulations, including California, Massachusetts or New York, an organization cannot comply with those regulatory frameworks requiring reasonable network security safeguards without considering threats to DNS. The statutory requirements do not generally mandate the particular mix of cybersecurity controls required to protect DNS. Rather, the frameworks require organizations to implement formalized processes to anticipate and assess risks from cyber threats and then adopt reasonable safeguards. Organizations may reference NIST publications and other technical guidance for a catalog of controls to choose from based on the risk assessment. Consistent with the regulatory imperatives requiring vigilance and appropriate counter-measures to safeguard data when threats evolve, organizations should revisit their defenses given the recent threats to DNS.

Attackers seek to disrupt the normal operations of DNS servers and applications responsible for resolving domain names to properly route network communications between computers. DNS looks up the IP address of the computer to receive the communication based on its domain name and advises the computer requesting a connection of the associated IP address to send the request to. For example, when a user types “www.anycompany.com” in his or her web browser or sends an email (e.g., “tsmith@anycompany.com”) DNS resolves the domain name (“www.anycompany.com”) to a numerical IP address, such as 172.30.xxx.xxx. DNS advises the requesting computer of the IP address corresponding to the domain name and the requesting computer accordingly directs the traffic. ...

Read the full post here.

Back to Workforce Bulletin Blog

Search This Blog

Blog Editors

Related Services

Topics

Archives

Jump to Page

Subscribe

Sign up to receive an email notification when new Workforce Bulletin posts are published:

Privacy Preference Center

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.