If you use Google Chrome (and who doesn’t), then you might see requests such as those below when you start up your browser. Randomized hostnames – so obviously, you start thinking of malware sending out those requests.

 

Fiddler_random_hostnames

 

Turns out, it is chrome doing some sanity testing. It is basically checking if your network has built-in redirects for not-found domains. Example – if you have roadrunner, you will have seen the ‘oops , not found page’ from roadrunner – if you try going to a non-existent domain.

Chrome is simply trying to determine if your network has those kind of redirects built in – and it can do that by trying (intentionally) to go to non-existent domains (randomized domain names).

Here is some more detail on this chrome feature.

https://mikewest.org/2012/02/chrome-connects-to-three-random-domains-at-startup

Anuj holds professional certifications in Google Cloud, AWS as well as certifications in Docker and App Performance Tools such as New Relic. He specializes in Cloud Security, Data Encryption and Container Technologies.

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Anuj Varma – who has written posts on Anuj Varma, Hands-On Technology Architect, Clean Air Activist.

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