Keep your .au secure

Domain name system (DNS) abuse is harmful online activity that can adversely impact websites and result in financial losses for businesses, not-for-profit organisations and consumers.

DNS abuse refers to five categories of malicious online activity that is carried out through the DNS:

  • Botnets
  • Malware (such as ransomware)
  • Pharming
  • Phishing
  • Spam (where the spam is used to facilitate one of the other four categories).

auDA works to minimise DNS abuse in the .au domain to keep it trusted and secure. The .au domain is one of the most secure in the world, with only a small fraction of .au domain names (less than 0.0002 per cent as at June 2024) affected by DNS abuse.

Websites with insufficient security are vulnerable to DNS abuse, as well as other security threats. DNS abuse cases that do occur are almost always the result of hacked small business or not-for-profit websites with poor security. Hackers use automated tools to find websites with poor security, so businesses and organisations of all sizes could be affected and should seek to keep their websites secure.

The Five Ps of website security

There are plenty of things you can do to help protect your website and avoid falling victim to DNS abuse.

For additional assistance

You can find trusted information on the Federal Government’s cyber security website, and if you need assistance implementing security measures, contact your web hosting provider or an IT professional.

Visit cyber.gov.au

How auDA helps keep you protected

auDA is committed to DNS abuse mitigation and ensuring .au remains secure and trusted. We maintain strict .au Licensing Rules and undertake robust compliance activity to make the .au domain one of the most secure domains in the world. We have four levels of protection from DNS abuse in au:

  • Validation checks during registration by domain name providers
  • Post-registration validation checks by auDA
  • Daily checks against DNS abuse threat intelligence feeds
  • A clear, accessible complaints process.

Registrations in .au undergo validation to check the credentials used to register the .au domain name are valid. We conduct regular audits of registrations and monitor for suspicious registrations daily.

Global DNS abuse threat intelligence feeds provide reports of domain names reported for abuse, which allow us to act swiftly to suspend or cancel any relevant domain name registrations.

Contact us

To get in touch with us, including to report a suspected instance of DNS abuse, submit a general enquiry.

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