Check .lt domain

A website is attacked by cyber fraudsters: how to reduce the losses?

You cannot access a website or are redirected to the false bank website when trying to log onto your e-banking system? You may be facing cyber fraudsters. Which websites are more vulnerable and how to reduce the incurred financial losses?

If you cannot access the website for a while after entering the address in the search field, do not receive emails or cannot use other electronic services, it may be a failure in the operation of the Domain Name System (DNS). The short-term malfunctions do not cause any serious problems; however, an e-shop that is inaccessible for several hours or longer can cause financial losses to its owner.

“The operation of the DNS can be interrupted by cybercriminals who want to redirect the users to the false e-shops or e-banking systems. Sometimes the loading of the websites is slowed down by the malfunctions of the DNS or it takes too long to access the websites located in the remote countries. Usually, the malfunctions of the DNS are managed by the data centres containing the website’s servers. To enhance the protection of the system, they invest in new equipment and IT innovations, up-skilling of their employees and diversification of risk”, – states Donatas Šinickas, Head of the Data Transmission Group at the “Data Logistics Centre”.

Various DNS – greater security

According to the expert, if only one name server provides services to the website’s domain, it is more vulnerable because any malfunction or attack would make the website inaccessible to the users. This aspect alone would cause financial losses to the website’s owner. Therefore, it is recommended to use at least two name servers operating in different networks and located at several reliable data centres. In case of a malfunction in one DNS, the website remains accessible due to the operating second DNS.

According to the Head of the Internet Service Centre DOMREG at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) Daiva Tamulionienė, the more name servers, the better. A complex infrastructure is created for this service and the DNS servers providing services to the second level domains are located at the data centres of various Lithuanian cities as well as various countries of the world.

“The services to the Lithuanian websites using the .lt domain are provided by the name servers; each of them has from one to several dozen physical machines. This technology is called “anycast”; it allows to publish one IP address online from many locations and the user accesses the one which is topologically closer. Therefore, it increases reliability as well as speed by addressing the physical machine which is the closest to the user in the network”, - explains the expert.

Users trust the Lithuanian domains

D. Tamulionienė assures it is better to use .lt domain in the Lithuanian market because it raises consumer confidence. Moreover, it is easily memorised, the most popular in Lithuania and familiar to the Lithuanian internet community.

“It is always recommended to choose the national .lt domain for the Lithuanian website which target market is Lithuania because the users remember the internet names in the .lt domain easier and write the Lithuanian part of the name in the address line automatically, by force of habit. We notice the growth of the .lt domains each year: the increasing number shows that our country’s identifying domain is used for the expansion of the Lithuanian internet – emails, blogs, websites, shops, projects. This popularity is caused by the start-ups as well as the striving young businesses”, - assures D. Tamulionienė.

DNS is created to remember for you

ll the information on the internet is encrypted using various sequences of numbers and each internet user has a unique IP address. The Domain Name System was created to make it easier for us to use the services of the websites. It helps us to access the websites and receive other services online by using the domain names that are clear and easy to remember.

“To put it figuratively, the main function of the DNS is to make sure we would not have to memorise a complicated IP address and enter it in the search each time we want to visit a certain website. The DNS system does this work for us, it links the IP address with the domain name”, – states D. Šinickas.

Prepared according to the press release of the “Data Logistics Centre”.
Published 2020-11-25