According to a recent survey conducted by the Neustar International Security Council (NISC), two-thirds (67 percent) of organizations have secondary DNS solutions in place, largely to ensure resilience in the event of an attack or outage. However, one-third of enterprises continue to operate with only one DNS service in place representing a significant number of organizations that are at greater risk of downtime.
Of the surveyed security professionals who confirmed the use of a secondary DNS solution, 71 percent cited that resiliency was a key driver in their decision. In essence, their organizations are seeking to ensure business continuity and disaster recovery, reducing the risk of failure should the enterprise be subject to service outages or cyber attacks.
Additionally, 56 percent of organizations that use dual DNS services noted that the practice is essential for complying with industry-specific requirements.
DNS is a mission-critical service, keeping businesses accessible and available, and because of its foundational nature, it is likely to have evolved with an organization’s growth and development to become more complex over time. Yet fewer than half (46 percent) of survey respondents said their organizations work with a managed DNS service provider that would provide assistance in managing that complexity.
Survey respondents were for the most part confident that their organizations were on top of DNS issues. For instance, 88 percent felt their organizations were aware of and quick to address DNS configuration and security issues, 86 percent believed their organizations adhered to best practices, and 82 percent agreed that their organization’s domains were RFC-compliant. However, when asked if their organization’s DNS configurations are very healthy and managed and updated regularly, less than half (45 percent) agreed, while 49 percent felt their DNS configurations were somewhat healthy, with occasional management and updates conducted, and five percent admitting to rare management and updates, resulting in an unhealthy state.