What is DNS over HTTPS DoH?

Understanding DNS over HTTPS DoH

DNS over HTTPS (DoH) addresses a long-standing privacy vulnerability in Internet communications—the fact that traditional DNS queries are sent unencrypted, allowing network operators, ISPs, or attackers to easily monitor which websites users are visiting. DoH encrypts DNS queries by sending them over HTTPS, making them indistinguishable from regular web traffic and preventing surveillance or tampering by intermediate parties. While this provides significant privacy benefits for users, it creates challenges for organizational security monitoring—security teams that previously relied on DNS logs for threat detection may lose visibility as queries become encrypted. This has made DoH implementation somewhat controversial, with privacy advocates strongly supporting it while some security professionals argue it can undermine network security controls. Organizations implementing DoH must carefully balance these considerations, potentially deploying internal DoH resolvers that maintain security visibility while still protecting queries from external monitoring. Configuration approaches vary widely based on specific risk profiles and regulatory requirements around both privacy and security monitoring.