Importing DNS records creates 59 incorrect records

[jeff84]

I have imported many domains into Cloudflare and the DNS import has always been flawless. However, I imported one today and it created 59 DNS records, all of which are incorrect. There are none of the proper MX records or A records, yet all of the A records that were imported do point to the IP address of the web server.

Most concerning is that a few of the A records are for Russian cities (chelyabinsk, vologda).

I have looked at the actual DNS records and they appear to be normal. There is a wildcard DNS record and on other posts it seems this may be why this happened. I’m just concerned that there might be something else going on as well as many of the incorrect A records look like they might be related to hacking or malware.

I also checked the domain name on MXToolbox and it reports “Sorry, we couldn’t find any name servers…”

No idea what is happening here. The website and email still function correctly.

[sjr]

@jeff84

There is a wildcard DNS record and on other posts it seems this may be why this happened.

Yes, the wildcard would have done this. At some point someone has tried lots of random subdomains against your domain and due to the wildcard, these have all returned a value and the internet never forgets (you are probably lucky it was only 59!). I never use wildcards for that reason.

I’m not sure how Cloudflare gets the records, likely a mix of trying obvious ones (www, mx, mail, ftp, imap, smtp, etc, etc), SSL certificates issued and the biggest resource will be records of requests passed through 1.1.1.1.

[jeff84]

Thanks so much, that sets my mind at ease!