WhoisXML API Blog

People in IT, cybersecurity, marketing, and other specialists can all agree on one thing: the Internet has become a battleground.

Various departments encounter unique challenges and having access to the right information provides an edge. Combating cybercrime, amping up branding efforts, competition monitoring, streamlining business processes — those are just a few activities that require reliable sources.

Just like in the real world, the Web is composed of good and bad places and people. Thus, to avoid the wrong districts and the malicious agents that reside there, companies need the right cybersecurity workflows in place — especially as digital systems are taking over businesses.

In order to proactively mitigate threats or successfully detect cybercrime, security teams need to start by drawing up a map of the adversary’s infrastructure by investigating its historic & active dangerous behavior on a network. The various security tools, systems or software that analysts use to ‘connect the dots’ are effective in providing actionable Intel on any attack surface only if timely, comprehensive & accurate data is collated & ingested in them. Many times just finding the relevant data, collecting it from multiple sources, normalizing it, feeding the data in these tools may waste precious time & result in lost opportunities. (great opportunities for the cyber criminals though!)

The WHOIS system is a critical research and security component. Its information provides valuable background information that helps affirm proper network connectivity, domain source information, and contributes towards critical security and service continuity.

All things must change, which is the way of technology and the internet. Seeking improvement in the integrity of domain records, the RDAP standard was developed as a successor to the WHOIS protocol and it is currently making its way through the adoption curve. The object was to create a standard for nimble, portable, and accurate data without the legacy issues of WHOIS. The emerging format features a standard, machine-readable JSON standard and a foundation build on RESTful web services. This systems is HTTP-compatible, so that error codes, user identification, authentication, and access control can be delivered through the universal HTTP web protocol.

If you’ve ever looked at a WHOIS entry, you probably know how much valuable information is contained within the records of just one domain registration. When this information is accurate, it can make getting in touch with other parties on the web a lot easier. In the real world however, accessing consistently accurate WHOIS data is more of a goal than anything else. For every accurate WHOIS record, there are many more inaccurate and sometimes fraudulent records.

With each passing year, the magnitude of cyber crime has increased steadfastly. Small & large companies alike are facing threats to their online infrastructure, customer data & reputation with these constantly evolving attacks. Whether it is an in-house IT team monitoring the safety of their company, MSSP providing security services, or security analyst detecting cyber crime at large, smart cybersecurity begins with knowing what you are really up against and having valuable data about hosts, domain owners, websites, servers, and configurations. But with the plethora of data points available to verify & analyze this task has only become more difficult. Professionals are now no longer looking for just data sets but Intel over various online entities to take timely action & make informed decisions on their security operations & strategy.

IP geolocation is the kind of thing people don’t think about—until it goes wrong. In an age of increasingly precise, tailored searches, consumers want relevant results, and when those results appear in the wrong language, or refer to distant resources, everyone loses. Sometimes, the problem is within the search engine itself, but more often this kind of problem arises from inaccurate data regarding the searcher’s location.