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Passive DNS Collection & Analysis: dnstap Transaction Flows

Paul Vixie

Internet pioneer Paul Vixie introduces dnstap, a high-speed standard interface for capturing and analyzing real-time recursive DNS transaction flows.

Summary

The Critical Role of DNS in Threat Telemetry

Domain Name System (DNS) traffic contains vital telemetry for detecting malware command-and-control infrastructure, phishing domains, and data exfiltration channels.

Introducing the dnstap Protocol Interface

Paul Vixie presents dnstap, a structured, event-driven logging mechanism that captures real-time DNS queries and responses directly from recursive resolver memory.

Comparing Packet Sniffing vs. Native Resolver Logging

Vixie explains why traditional PCAP sniffing drops packets under high loads, whereas dnstap leverages framed protobuf streams for zero-loss collection.

Architecting Large-Scale Passive DNS Analytics

The presentation reviews integrating dnstap streams into security operations centers (SOCs) and passive DNS databases for global threat intelligence.

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