DNS over HTTPS faced a lot of heat from security experts. But here’s what is happening now.

• The DNS over HTTPS (DoH) protocol has been in the spotlight this year, with people praising and criticizing it.
• Despite all the debates, many browsers have plans to ship the DoH protocol in some form.

What is DNS over HTTPS?

DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is a protocol that boosts the privacy and security of the user by encrypting DNS traffic.

• Using this protocol, browsers can hide requests and responses behind HTTPS traffic.
• The DoH queries are sent to servers called DoH resolvers that have the capability of resolving the DNS query from the DoH request and providing a similarly encrypted response.
• DoH helps in minimizing eavesdropping attacks and man-in-the-middle attacks.
• This protocol was recently created and proposed as an internet standard.

The flipside

However, the DoH protocol has also faced a lot of public criticism from networking and cybersecurity professionals.

• Experts say that DoH may weaken many cybersecurity solutions. Encrypting DNS protocols prevents organizations from using DNS query data to check for malicious domain access.
• Because DoH can be used to bypass DNS-based country or ISP-wide firewalls, it is believed that implementing this protocol may help cyber criminals escape detection.

The state of DoS now

All major browsers plan to roll out the DoH protocol soon. In fact, many browsers already support the protocol and only require users to enable and configure it.

• The Brave browser doesn’t have a timeline for rolling out DoH, but the team said there plans to implement it.
• Google Chrome, Opera, and Firefox already support this much talked about protocol.
• The Microsoft Edge team plans to roll out the protocol sometime next year.

With users rooting for this protocol and ISPs strongly against it, the introduction of DoH in browsers is an interesting development.