It is one of the oldest concerns of conducting business transactions: How can you be sure that the other person is who they say they are. In the past, business validation was more straightforward. Customers could visit physical stores or financial centers, visually confirming the establishment’s legitimacy. Personal interactions, such as eye contact or handshakes, provided additional layers of trust and authenticity. 

The Role of Domain Names in Business 

The digital landscape has fundamentally altered this dynamic. Today, we often interact with domains – virtual entities that we assume represent the organizations we intend to engage with. This shift underscores the critical importance of domain validation. A validated domain equates to trust in the digital realm. Think of it as a virtual handshake. Because of its importance, you also need to consider as an extension of attack surface and that makes it a critical component of any organization’s cybersecurity posture. 

 
The consequences of an unvalidated domain extend far beyond a customer questioning who you are. It exposes organizations to significant risks that include typosquatting, increased phishing attacks and eroding brand reputation. That is why companies take basic validation measures. These steps are increasingly proving inadequate in today’s complex digital landscape. As a result, businesses need to reassess and enhance their domain validation strategies to ensure robust protection and efficient use of security resources. 

Hackers Look for Old Domain Names 

Business evolves over time, and that means that they must occasionally retire or swap out their domain names. If those names are allowed to be retired, they return to domain registries where cybercriminals are more than eager to purchase them. Hackers actively monitor these registries for neglected domains, recognizing their potential value. They understand that these expired domains may continue to receive emails from unsuspecting vendors, financial institutions, and customers who are unaware of the domain’s retirement. 

The Hidden Costs of Inadequate Domain Validation 

Unvalidated domains frequently serve as a foundation for phishing attacks, posing significant financial risks to organizations. These attacks can result in substantial monetary losses through various means: 

• Whale attacks targeting high-level executives 

• Data breaches compromising sensitive information 

• Ransomware incidents leading to operational disruptions and potential ransom payments 

Even when organizations successfully prevent such incidents, they still incur considerable costs: 

• Implementation and maintenance of sophisticated anti-phishing systems 

• Development and ongoing execution of comprehensive employee training programs 

• Regular updates to security protocols and software 

The practice of typosquatting presents a significant threat as these malicious domains can serve as conduits for data exfiltration of sensitive information. There is also the risk of eroding brand reputation as consumers encounter these fraudulent domains and lose confidence in the legitimate brand. 

Inefficiencies Arising from Poor Domain Management 

Non-validated domains not only present a security risk, but also expose an organization to greater operational inefficiencies.  

• Wasted API Calls: Invalid domains trigger unnecessary API requests that can potentially deplete rate limits, increase costs, and overload systems, all of which can prevent critical operations and reduce overall system performance. 

• License Utilization: Processing invalid domains wastes security tool capacity, leading to inefficient resource allocation, increased costs for additional licenses, and potentially compromised security effectiveness for legitimate assets. 

• Resource Allocation: Investigating false positives from inadequate validation reduces productivity, delays response to real threats, increases labor costs, and can lead to employee burnout in security teams. 

Traditional Regex Domain Validation 

Organizations have traditionally relied on regex for domain validation. Regex is short for regular expressions as the process looks for specific patterns in text. These discovered text patterns allow computers to quickly find, validate and manipulate text based on the specific rules. Regex was once considered adequate for domain validation, just as relying solely on passwords worked at one time as well. However, today’s digital landscape is far more complex and threat laden. The limitations of regex-based domain validation have become increasingly apparent. This includes the complexity of modern domains, the sophistication of modern attack techniques using automated intelligence, and the maintenance and performance challenges that Regex presents. 

Introducing a Multi Layered Validation Process 

Security experts often advocate for a multilayered security strategy, incorporating tools like Managed Detection and Response (MDR) to create a comprehensive defense. This approach recognizes that relying on a single security tool is insufficient in today’s complex threat landscape. At CYREBRO, we embody this approach not only in our MDR offering but also in the innovative tools we develop to enhance its capabilities. 

The Domain Validator’s design was led by Nitzan Shwartz, CYREBRO’s Security Automation Team Leader, as part of the Innovation team’s plan to support precise and efficient domain validation during alert investigation. This tool is seamlessly integrated into CYREBRO’s MDR solution, playing a vital role in strengthening the accuracy of our threat detection and response processes. 

 
This multilayer approach begins with enhanced regex validation techniques such as validating against a list of valid Top Line Domains (TLDs) to confirm the appropriate domain extension and blocks domains that contain consecutive dots or invalid characters that could be used to confuse users. It then incorporates Infrastructure Verification which includes checking HTTP/HTTPS availability, validating DNS records using nslookup, and verifying WHOIS records to ensure comprehensive domain authenticity and security. 

Effective domain validation is further achieved through the implementation of email security standards such as DKIM record verification, SPF record validation, and Email authentication readiness. DKIM verification ensures emails are signed with a digital signature validated against a public key in DNS to confirm the sender’s authenticity, while SPF validation defines authorized senders in DNS to prevent spoofing by verifying the sending IP address. DKIM and SPF are then integrated with DMARC policies to handle emails that fail any authentication checks to improve deliverability and maintain trust in email communications. 

Why Choose the CYREBRO Validator? 

CYREBRO’s Domain Validator represents a step forward in addressing issues of both security and efficiency. This innovative tool offers several key benefits: 

• Reduced False Positives that leads to more accurate threat detection 

• Enhanced Efficiency due to fewer wasted API calls and license utilization 

• A stronger security posture to protect against domain-based attacks 

• Greater resource optimization so that security teams can focus on real threats instead of false leads. 

Conclusion

Evolving cyber threats have rendered traditional security measures, such as password-only authentication and simple regex for domain validation, inadequate in today’s complex digital landscape. Domain name management is something you cannot afford to ignore because unvalidated domains represent significant vulnerabilities to your business. Regardless of what tools you use, proper domain validation is essential.  

If you are ready to enhance your domain validation process, feel free to download CYREBRO’s Domain Validator from our GitHub repository or install it directly via pip. Taking proactive steps now can safeguard your organization against potential vulnerabilities and ensure the integrity of your online presence.