Hardenize tool
This page explains how the Government Digital Service (GDS) uses the Hardenize tool as part of basic monitoring.
What we use Hardenize for
The Cyber and domain protection team focuses on securing government services for the whole of the UK.
Hardenize is a commercial tool offering monitoring and discovery services. Although they provide web and email monitoring services, we only use the domain and DNS-related monitoring capabilities.
Hardenize is part of our basic monitoring service which looks for a range of internet-facing domain and DNS-related misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.
GDS uses Hardenize as part of basic monitoring to find:
- domain lifecycle issues
- dangling resources and lame delegations
- nameserver misconfigurations, consistency issues and failures
Monitoring scope and frequency
Hardenize monitor the .gov.uk domain every 8 hours and these domains weekly:
- gov.wales
- llyw.cymru
- police.uk
- nhs.uk
- nhs.net
- nhs.wales
- nhs.scot
- mod.uk
- parliament.uk
- judiciary.uk
We also monitor domains in other namespaces that have been registered by public sector organisations, for example in .com or .org.uk.
How Hardenize works
All Hardenize traffic originates from outbound.hardenize.com with dedicated IP addresses:
172.99.67.55
18.233.176.231
45.79.154.188
35.245.99.127
2600:1f18:753:1b00:eb42:a50a:13c8:2f67
2001:4802:7805:104:be76:4eff:fe20:236
2600:3c03:0:0:f03c:93ff:fe85:e891
Read more about the Hardenize domain and DNS-related monitoring capabilities.
Contact
If you need more information email support@domains.gov.uk.