DNS zone files

Name: DNS zone files
Creator: TestPattern Community
License: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

Identifies dns zone files patterns in security and access control contexts. Detects potential exposure of sensitive security information in international systems.

Type: regex
Engine: boost_regex
Confidence: medium
Confidence justification: structural regex with domain-specific anchors and constrained context replaces phrase-only marker. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.
Detection quality: Not detected
Jurisdictions: global
Regulations: GDPR
Data categories: credentials, security
Scope: wide
Platform compatibility: Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Compatible, Netskope: Unsupported

Pattern

\$ORIGIN\b|\$TTL\b|\bIN\s+SOA\b|\bIN\s+A\s+\d{1,3}(?:\.\d{1,3}){3}\b|\bIN\s+(?:AAAA|CNAME|MX|NS|PTR|SRV|TXT)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

dns zone files, dns, zone, files, operations, resilience

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

$TTL 86400 — Zone-file TTL directive
$ORIGIN example.com. — Zone-file ORIGIN directive
www IN A 192.0.2.1 — A record line
example.com. IN SOA ns1.example.com. admin.example.com. — SOA record line

Should not match

we met in a meeting room — Lowercase "in a" prose must not match (IN is case-sensitive)
the soa architecture team reviewed it — Lowercase "soa" prose must not match
generic policy prose without anchors — Should reject generic mentions without zone-file structure
template example placeholder record identifier — Template/sample context should be excluded

Known false positives

Authentication-related terminology in software documentation, security training materials, or system architecture descriptions without actual credentials. Mitigation: Require proximity to credential-specific patterns (API keys, connection strings, tokens) rather than general security terminology.
Code snippets and configuration examples containing credential-related keywords or placeholder values in developer documentation. Mitigation: Check for common placeholder patterns (example.com, localhost, 0000) and documentation file types to reduce false positives from technical writing.

References

https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/ism
https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/emergency-management
https://www.disasterassist.gov.au/
https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/australian-privacy-principles-guidelines/chapter-11-app-11-security-of-personal-information