The Blocked Domains card appears in the top-right corner of the dashboard and shows the total number of domains intercepted by Scout’s DNS filtering over the past 7 days.
Overview
The Blocked Domains card tracks how many DNS requests were prevented from reaching their destination within the last seven days. Each count represents a connection attempt to a domain that Scout identified as malicious, suspicious, or inappropriate based on filtering rules and threat intelligence.
The number updates automatically and provides an at-a-glance measure of how active your DNS protection has been.
How It Works
Every time a device connected to the Scout network attempts to visit a website or service, the DNS request is evaluated by Blackhole, Scout’s content filtering engine.
If the requested domain matches:
- A known malware or phishing domain
- A tracking or advertising network
- A blocked content category (for example, adult or gambling)
- An organization-defined rule in your allow/block list
Scout intercepts the request, blocks the connection, and logs the event. The Blocked Domains card shows the total number of such events detected over the past 7 days across all connected devices.
Why It Matters
This metric illustrates the real-world impact of your DNS protection. It reflects how often Scout is preventing potentially harmful or undesired connections from occurring.
A high or rising number of blocked domains may indicate:
- Increased attempts to reach unsafe or policy-restricted content
- Active background tracking or telemetry from installed software
- Broader phishing or malware activity targeting your users
A consistently low count can mean your filtering rules are stable or that network activity is low. A sudden drop may suggest that a router is offline or that DNS traffic is being routed outside of Scout’s protection.
Tips and Best Practices
- Compare this number with Top Blocked Domains to identify which sites or services trigger the most activity.
- Review Threats Detected vs. Blocked for correlation between domain filtering and intrusion prevention results.
- Adjust category presets or custom allowlists if legitimate services are being blocked.
- Use trends in this metric to guide awareness training or policy updates for users.
The Blocked Domains card updates automatically every 24 hours based on DNS logs collected across all Scout-connected routers and peers.