Unravelling Ariadne's Thread: Exploring the Threats of Decentralised DNS
Authors: Patsakis, C., Casino, F., Lykousas, N. and Katos, V.
Journal: IEEE Access
Volume: 8
Pages: 118559-118571
eISSN: 2169-3536
DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3004727
Abstract:The current landscape of the core Internet technologies shows considerable centralisation with the big tech companies controlling the vast majority of traffic and services. This situation has sparked a wide range of decentralisation initiatives with blockchain technology being among the most prominent and successful innovations. At the same time, over the past years there have been considerable attempts to address the security and privacy issues affecting the Domain Name System (DNS). To this end, it is claimed that Blockchain-based DNS may solve many of the limitations of traditional DNS. However, such an alternative comes with its own security concerns and issues, as any introduction and adoption of a new technology typically does - let alone a disruptive one. In this work we present the emerging threat landscape of blockchain-based DNS and we empirically validate the threats with real-world data. Specifically, we explore a part of the blockchain DNS ecosystem in terms of the browser extensions using such technologies, the chain itself (Namecoin and Emercoin), the domains, and users who have been registered in these platforms. Our findings reveal several potential domain extortion attempts and possible phishing schemes. Finally, we suggest countermeasures to address the identified threats, and we identify emerging research themes.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/34212/
Source: Scopus
Unravelling Ariadne's Thread: Exploring the Threats of Decentralised DNS
Authors: Patsakis, C., Casino, F., Lykousas, N. and Katos, V.
Journal: IEEE ACCESS
Volume: 8
Pages: 118559-118571
ISSN: 2169-3536
DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3004727
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/34212/
Source: Web of Science (Lite)
Unravelling Ariadne’s Thread: Exploring the Threats of Decentralised DNS
Authors: Patsakis, C., Casino, F., Lykousas, N. and Katos, V.
Journal: IEEE Access
Publisher: IEEE
ISSN: 2169-3536
Abstract:The current landscape of the core Internet technologies shows considerable centralisation with the big tech companies controlling the vast majority of traffic and services. This situation has sparked a wide range of decentralisation initiatives with blockchain technology being among the most prominent and successful innovations. At the same time, over the past years there have been considerable attempts to address the security and privacy issues affecting the Domain Name System (DNS). To this end, it is claimed that Blockchain-based DNS may solve many of the limitations of traditional DNS. However, such an alternative comes with its own security concerns and issues, as any introduction and adoption of a new technology typically does - let alone a disruptive one. In this work we present the emerging threat landscape of blockchain-based DNS and we empirically validate the threats with real-world data. Specifically, we explore a part of the blockchain DNS ecosystem in terms of the browser extensions using such technologies, the chain itself (Namecoin and Emercoin), the domains, and users who have been registered in these platforms. Our findings reveal several potential domain extortion attempts and possible phishing schemes. Finally, we suggest countermeasures to address the identified threats, and we identify emerging research themes.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/34212/
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9123760
Source: Manual
Unravelling Ariadne’s Thread: Exploring the Threats of Decentralised DNS
Authors: Patsakis, C., Casino, F., Lykousas, N. and Katos, V.
Journal: IEEE Access
Volume: 8
Pages: 118559-118571
ISSN: 2169-3536
Abstract:The current landscape of the core Internet technologies shows considerable centralisation with the big tech companies controlling the vast majority of traffic and services. This situation has sparked a wide range of decentralisation initiatives with blockchain technology being among the most prominent and successful innovations. At the same time, over the past years there have been considerable attempts to address the security and privacy issues affecting the Domain Name System (DNS). To this end, it is claimed that Blockchain-based DNS may solve many of the limitations of traditional DNS. However, such an alternative comes with its own security concerns and issues, as any introduction and adoption of a new technology typically does - let alone a disruptive one. In this work we present the emerging threat landscape of blockchain-based DNS and we empirically validate the threats with real-world data. Specifically, we explore a part of the blockchain DNS ecosystem in terms of the browser extensions using such technologies, the chain itself (Namecoin and Emercoin), the domains, and users who have been registered in these platforms. Our findings reveal several potential domain extortion attempts and possible phishing schemes. Finally, we suggest countermeasures to address the identified threats, and we identify emerging research themes.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/34212/
Source: BURO EPrints