Are you properly defended? In the sense of your computer and network safety, do you feel you have a good defence in depth strategy? This is not something to take lightly, and if you wish to truthfully answer yes, you have to be sure you have defences such as a DNS firewall, advanced malware protection, cloud security solutions, and more. Let us take a moment to understand just why this is important to anyone online.

Consider this – the source code for the Mirai botnet was shared online in late 2016. This is a form of malware that converts networked IoT devices into remote controlled bots. These are then used in enormous numbers to perform network attacks at an astonishing scale. In fact, the Mirai botnet actually knocked the entire nation of Liberia offline.

Once the Mirai botnet was shared, though, it split many times over, and now there are multiple Mirai derivatives at work. While you may not yet know what that means to you in terms of security, it is safe to say that you do not want to become victim to it – whether as a business owner or consumer.

To understand why a strong DNS firewall, real time malware protection, and internet security services are important, we need to look at what happened when the Mirai botnet set to work in October of 2016.

Mirai at Work

When the malware had infected enough machines, it attacked and disrupted websites as famous as Airbnb, PayPal, Spotify and the PlayStation network. It did this by taking over IoT (Internet of Things) devices like baby monitors, CCTV systems, DVRs and routers. Though you may not think that the processing power of your CCTV system would amount to much, imagine millions of devices pooling their resources…this is how the Mirai botnet (and many other botnets) operate.

What did it use the power for? It performed a DDoS or distributed denial of service attack that flooded the systems at a firm known as Dyn, a cloud DNS provider. While IT experts are consistently advising against online businesses relying strictly on a single DNS provider in order to ensure accessibility even when under an attack, there are steps that you can take directly to protect yourself.

Considering Real Time Solutions

A DNS firewall is easily one of the strongest ways to overcome the risk of IoT vulnerability, botnets, malware and other threats. It will prevent system connections to known or recognized malicious locations. However, it can also make you aware of the presence of botnets within, or threatening, your network. Because the availability of your website (which is your business) is linked to the availability of your network, you have no real choice but to find ways to implement DNS security solutions. It is the availability of those DNS services that make you reachable, and the botnet attacks are directly targeting this accessibility.
Until IoT devices and other vulnerabilities that plague the Internet are remedied, it is best to find options for a DNS firewall, DNS security solutions, advanced malware protection and other cloud security solutions.