Chromium Blog: Secure DNS

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Chromium Blog

News and developments from the open source browser project

A safer and more private browsing experience on Android with Secure DNS

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

With Chrome 85, we are extending support of Secure DNS in Chrome to Android. Secure DNS is a feature we introduced in Chrome 83 on desktop platforms. It’s a feature built on top of a secure DNS protocol called DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), which is designed to improve your safety and privacy while browsing the web. You can learn more about Secure DNS by reading our previous blog post. Just like we did for the launch of DoH on Chrome for desktop platforms, we will progressively roll out DoH on Chrome for Android to ensure the feature’s stability and performance, as well as help DoH providers scale their service accordingly.

Secure DNS in Chrome for Android shares the same design principles as its desktop platform version. Here is a high level overview of how the feature behaves and what options exist:

Chrome will automatically switch to DNS-over-HTTPS if your current DNS provider is known to support it. This also applies to your current Android Private DNS (DNS-over-TLS) if you have configured one. This approach means that we can preserve any extra services offered by your DNS service provider, such as family-safe filtering, and therefore avoid breaking user expectations. In this automatic mode, Chrome will also fall back to the regular DNS service of the user’s current provider (including DNS-over-TLS if configured), in order to avoid any disruption, while periodically retrying to secure the DNS communication.
In case this default behavior isn’t suitable to your needs, Chrome also provides manual configuration options allowing you to use a specific provider without fallback, as well as the ability to completely disable the feature.
If you are an IT administrator, Chrome will disable Secure DNS if it detects a managed environment via the presence of one or more enterprise policies. We’ve also added new DNS-over-HTTPS enterprise policies to allow for a managed configuration of Secure DNS and encourage IT administrators to look into deploying DNS-over-HTTPS for their users.

Secure DNS settings in Chrome for Android

While this milestone represents significant progress toward making browsing the web safer and more private, it’s still early days for DNS-over-HTTPS. As such, we remain open to feedback and collaboration with interested parties such as mobile operators and other ISPs, DNS service providers, and Online Child Safety advocates to make further progress in securing DNS.

Posted by Kenji Baheux, Chrome Product Manager

Google

Labels: DNS-over-HTTPS , DoH , Secure DNS

A safer and more private browsing experience with Secure DNS

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

gathering test dataaddressing some misconceptions Unencrypted DNSalmost ubiquitous

With unencrypted DNS, an attacker connected to the same network can observe other users’ browsing habits. Benefits of DNS-over-HTTPS

Authenticity: Chrome can verify that it is communicating with the intended DNS service provider and not a fake service provider that’s controlled by an attacker.
Integrity: Chrome can verify that the response it got from the DNS service provider hasn’t been tampered with by attackers using the same network, thereby stopping phishing attacks.
Confidentiality: Chrome can talk to the DNS service provider over an encrypted channel which means that attackers can no longer rely on DNS to observe which websites other users are visiting when sharing the same connection, e.g. public WiFi in a library.

With DNS-over-HTTPS, an attacker can no longer rely on DNS to observe other users’ browsing habits.

The introduction of DNS-over-HTTPS gives the whole ecosystem a rare opportunity to start from a clean and dependable slate, making it easier to pursue further enhancements relying on DNS as a delivery mechanism. Thus far, the unencrypted nature of DNS has meant that features that extend DNS could randomly fail due to causes such as network equipment that may drop or modify newly introduced DNS fields. As DNS-over-HTTPS grows, it will put this concern aside because it benefits from the aforementioned HTTPS properties and sets a new reliable baseline to build upon.

Responsibly deploying DNS-over-HTTPS

Changing how DNS works is a non-trivial task. In particular, with more than 35 years of history, a lot of additional services and features have been built on top of DNS. For instance, some Internet Service Providers offer family-safe filtering via DNS. So, while we would love to have everyone benefit from Secure DNS immediately, we also know that we have to get there in a way that doesn’t break user expectations. Navigating these goals led us to the “same-provider DNS-over-HTTPS upgrade” approach that we experimented with at the end of 2019. The successful experiment gave us confidence about the performance and stability aspects for both Chrome’s Secure DNS and our partners’ DNS-over-HTTPS services. It also highlighted opportunities to improve the auto-upgrade success rate.

Here is how this “same-provider DNS-over-HTTP upgrade” approach works. Chrome maintains a list of DNS providers known to support DNS-over-HTTPS. Chrome uses this list to match the user’s current DNS service provider with that provider’s DNS-over-HTTPS service, if the provider offers one. By keeping the user’s chosen provider, we can preserve any extra services offered by the DNS service provider, such as family-safe filtering, and therefore avoid breaking user expectations. Furthermore, if there’s any hiccup with the DNS-over-HTTPS connection, Chrome will fall back to the regular DNS service of the user’s current provider by default, in order to avoid any disruption, while periodically retrying to secure the DNS communication. Finally, to avoid an issue that otherwise could arise for users running Windows, Chrome will also disable Secure DNS if Windows parental controls are enabled, so that any filtering software that relies on a regular DNS connection can continue to work while we collaborate with the ecosystem on ways for Secure DNS to co-exist with these filtering solutions.

If you are an IT administrator, Chrome will disable Secure DNS if it detects a managed environment via the presence of one or more enterprise policies. We’ve also added new DNS-over-HTTPS enterprise policies to allow for a managed configuration of Secure DNS and encourage IT administrators to look into deploying DNS-over-HTTPS for their users.

We believe that our approach strikes a good balance between moving security & privacy forward and maintaining user expectations. However, if this default behavior doesn’t suit your needs, head over to Chrome’s settings and search for Secure DNS to configure it to your liking. For instance, you can disable the feature altogether, or configure it in a no-fallback mode by choosing a specific DNS-over-HTTPS service provider among a list of popular options or by specifying a custom provider.

As ISPs and DNS service providers make progress on their DNS-over-HTTPS services, we expect to support more options in future milestones via our DNS-over-HTTPS program.

Chrome’s Secure DNS will progressively be made available on Chrome OS, Windows and Mac OS with Android and Linux coming soon.

Onwards

While these are early days, we are proud of playing a role in the adoption of DNS-over-HTTPS and helping our users benefit from a safer and more private way of browsing the web. At the same time, we also understand how intricate DNS is, which is why we’ve been and will continue to move carefully and transparently. As always, we’re open to feedback and welcome collaboration with stakeholders including ISPs, DNS service providers, and Online Child Safety advocates as we make further progress in securing DNS.

Posted by Kenji Baheux, Chrome Product Manager