🌍 What is DNS Science?
DNS Science is a comprehensive global DNS and SSL infrastructure monitoring framework designed to provide unprecedented visibility into the Internet's critical infrastructure. We continuously ingest, analyze, and monitor DNS, SSL/TLS, CAA records, SMTP security configurations, and certificate data across the entire Internet.
Our Mission
To provide security professionals, system administrators, and organizations with real-time intelligence about their DNS and SSL infrastructure, enabling them to detect anomalies, prevent security incidents, and maintain optimal configurations.
What We Monitor
🔐 DNS Security
DNSSEC validation, DNS drift detection, cache poisoning indicators, and propagation delays across global resolvers
📧 Email Security
SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI, and MTA-STS configurations with real-time validation and compliance checking
🔒 SSL/TLS Infrastructure
Certificate chain validation, expiration monitoring, revocation status, and cipher suite analysis
📊 Configuration Drift
Historical tracking of NS records, A/AAAA records, MX records, and all DNS configuration changes
🌐 Global Coverage
Monitoring from multiple vantage points worldwide to detect regional anomalies and propagation issues
🚨 Threat Intelligence
Integration with 20+ threat intelligence feeds including CISA KEV, ThreatFox, Feodo Tracker, SSL Blacklist, Shadowserver, CINS Score, Blocklist.de, and more to identify malicious domains and compromised infrastructure
🔍 Reverse WHOIS/RDAP
SecurityTrails-like reverse lookup: Find all domains owned by an email address, organization, registrar, or using specific nameservers
⚙️ Our Technology Stack
DNS Science is powered by a proprietary, custom-built DNS and SSL monitoring, fingerprinting, and diagnostics stack running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. Our platform is designed for internet-scale data processing and analysis.
Key Technologies
- Multi-threaded Scanning Engines: Parallel processing of millions of domains with intelligent rate limiting and retry logic
- Global DNS Caching Layer: Distributed cache network to reduce latency and improve accuracy of DNS measurements
- Data Sanitation Pipeline: Advanced deduplication and normalization to ensure data quality and consistency
- Real-time Processing: Stream processing architecture for immediate detection of configuration changes
- Machine Learning: Anomaly detection algorithms to identify unusual patterns and potential security incidents
- Scalable Storage: PostgreSQL with JSONB for flexible schema and high-performance queries
- API-First Design: RESTful API with comprehensive documentation for easy integration
👥 Who We Are
DNS Science is created and operated by the DNS engineering experts at After Dark Systems, LLC, a company with over 20 years of experience designing, implementing, and managing complex DNS infrastructures for enterprise clients worldwide.
Our Experience
Our team has worked with:
- Tier-1 Internet Service Providers: Managing DNS infrastructure serving millions of subscribers
- US-Based Petroleum Giants: Securing critical infrastructure for energy sector leaders
- Large Financial Institutions: Implementing highly available, secure DNS solutions for global banking operations
- Government Agencies: Designing resilient DNS architectures for public sector organizations
- Healthcare Organizations: HIPAA-compliant DNS and security monitoring solutions
- E-commerce Platforms: High-performance DNS for mission-critical online services
With decades of combined experience, we've encountered every type of DNS challenge imaginable—from complex multi-cloud deployments to incident response during sophisticated DNS attacks. This wealth of real-world experience informs every aspect of DNS Science's design and operation.
📡 How We Create and Manage Data
After Dark Systems has developed a proprietary DNS surveillance and monitoring stack that combines multiple technologies to provide comprehensive, accurate, and timely data about internet infrastructure.
Data Collection Process
- Active Scanning: Continuous probing of DNS infrastructure using distributed scanners
- Passive Monitoring: Analysis of DNS query patterns and response behaviors
- Certificate Monitoring: Real-time tracking of SSL/TLS certificates and their chains
- Global Vantage Points: Measurements from multiple geographic locations to detect regional issues
- Historical Analysis: Comparison of current state with historical baselines to detect drift
Data Enrichment
Our data is enriched with:
- Global threat intelligence from 20+ commercial and open-source feeds:
- Government Sources: CISA KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities)
- Abuse.ch: ThreatFox, Feodo Tracker, SSL Blacklist, URLhaus
- Community Feeds: CINS Score, Blocklist.de, Shadowserver
- Commercial & Open: Google Safe Browsing, PhishTank, AlienVault OTX, Pulsedive, AbuseIPDB
- Paid Intelligence: SecurityTrails, Shodan
- Geolocation data for IP addresses and infrastructure
- ASN (Autonomous System Number) information and routing data
- Reverse WHOIS/RDAP: Search domains by registrant email, organization, registrar, or nameserver
- WHOIS and domain registration information
- Web3 domain data (ENS, Handshake, etc.)
- Reverse DNS mappings and PTR record validation
- Network security monitoring data from Zeek and Suricata
Data Quality Assurance
Every data point passes through our multi-stage validation pipeline that includes:
- Automated sanitation to remove invalid or malformed data
- Deduplication to eliminate redundant information
- Cross-validation against multiple authoritative sources
- Anomaly detection to flag suspicious or unusual patterns
- Data retention policies ensuring historical accuracy
🎯 Use Cases
DNS Science serves a wide range of security and operational use cases:
Security Operations
Detect DNS hijacking, cache poisoning, unauthorized configuration changes, and other DNS-based attacks in real-time
Compliance Monitoring
Ensure DNSSEC, SPF, DMARC, and other security standards are properly configured and maintained
Certificate Management
Track certificate expiration, monitor for rogue certificates, and validate certificate chains
Change Management
Audit and track all DNS configuration changes with historical comparison and rollback capabilities
Threat Hunting
Investigate suspicious domains and infrastructure using enriched threat intelligence data
Performance Monitoring
Measure DNS propagation times, identify slow resolvers, and optimize global DNS performance
📞 Get in Touch
Interested in learning more about DNS Science? Want to discuss enterprise licensing or custom integrations?
Contact Information
Phone: 1-866-646-4-DNS (1-866-646-4367)
Email: admin@dnsscience.io
Company: After Dark Systems, LLC
Website: afterdarksys.com