How DNS Works and Its Risks

The Domain Name System (DNS) translates human-friendly names like example.com into IP addresses such as 93.184.216.34. Almost every network transaction starts with a DNS lookup, which makes DNS a high-value target.

If an attacker controls or manipulates name resolution, they can silently redirect victims to malicious servers, intercept traffic, or exfiltrate data without touching the application itself. Understanding the resolution path is the first step to defending it.

A typical recursive lookup walks a chain of servers:

• Stub resolver on the client (the OS).
• Recursive resolver (your ISP or 8.8.8.8) that does the legwork.
• Root servers that point to the TLD servers.
• TLD servers (e.g. .com) that point to authoritative servers.
• Authoritative servers that hold the real records.

Each hop is a potential interception or spoofing point.