Unpacking DNS Abuse: Exploring the Ecosystem of Hosting and Content Providers

Threats to the Domain Name System (DNS) and its billions of users take many forms. The distinction between abuse of and abuse via the DNS is central to understanding and effectively addressing DNS abuse. Targeting responses and allocating resources where they are most effective and enduring is aided by these distinctions.

This series has explored the concepts of “Abuse of the DNS” and “Abuse via the DNS” and later examines the role of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the ICANN community in combating DNS abuse within its bylaws and limited technical remit. First, let’s delve deeper into the specific challenges and nuances of abuse via the DNS.

Abuse via the DNS is a way the DNS infrastructure, which facilitates online navigation, can be exploited for malicious purposes. DNS providers, including registries and registrars, are pivotal in managing and safeguarding the DNS but their options in combatting abuse are limited by their roles and contractual obligations. Their options often lack the precision needed to address abusive content and related online harms effectively, without impacting broader network functionality or causing collateral damage.

Precision in Abuse Mitigation: The Roles and Limitations of DNS Providers

Registries and registrars are central to the management of domain names, yet their influence is primarily technical and administrative, with both policy and technology limiting their ability to directly address content hosted on services accessed by way of the DNS. Their tools for combating abuse via the DNS, such as suspending or deleting domain names, are somewhat blunt instruments. These measures can disrupt user access to an abusive site but do not actually address the content itself – which could easily reappear elsewhere, associated with a different domain name. Suspending or deleting domain names also may inadvertently impact legitimate users and activities associated with a domain, such as when a website has been compromised to include illegal content on some parts of the site but not others. This approach – while necessary in certain extreme cases – does not offer the granularity or precision needed to address abusive content and related online harms without impacting other parties.

Hosting and content providers, on the other hand, possess more decisive control over the content, resources and broader services hosted on their infrastructure. They can take targeted actions to remove specific content that violates legal standards or their own policies, suspend individual user accounts or implement more nuanced filtering techniques to combat abuse. For example, a hosting provider can identify and shut down a single malicious webpage hosted on a domain name without impacting other legitimate services using the same domain name.

Successful mitigation of abuse via the DNS often comes from collaborative efforts, leveraging the strengths of DNS infrastructure and hosting providers. For instance, when a registrar identifies a domain name associated with malicious activities, instead of basic deletion of a domain name while the malicious content remains online, it can work with the hosting provider to pinpoint and address the problematic elements. This kind of collaboration allows for surgical removal of the abusive content while keeping legitimate websites and services online, and better addressing possible scenarios involving a bad actor versus cases where a legitimate user’s account has been compromised.

Moving Forward: Integrating Roles and Responsibilities

As the internet continues to evolve, so too does the sophistication of DNS abuse. This evolution necessitates a reevaluation of the roles and responsibilities in and beyond the DNS ecosystem. While registries and registrars must continue to refine their policies and technical capabilities for early abuse detection and response, hosting and content providers also must implement robust measures to quickly and precisely address abusive content hosted on their platforms. Only through integrated, collaborative efforts can the integrity and security of the internet be maintained.