Client overview
Sonitek is a precision manufacturing company specializing in heat staking, ultrasonic welding, and industrial automation equipment. Their business depends on reliable email and DNS infrastructure to support order processing, customer communication, internal operations, and B2B outreach.
The engagement
JD Tech was retained to support a DNS migration and website transition. Early in the engagement, it became clear that DNS, email authentication, and security controls were fragmented across multiple platforms — creating unnecessary risk during any migration.
As remediation work began, the organization experienced a live malicious email flooding attack, turning what was planned work into an active incident response.
What we found
- SPF, DKIM, and DMARC were misaligned and inconsistent across Microsoft 365, eCommerce systems, and third-party senders
- DNS was hosted in a way that made changes fragile and error-prone, increasing migration risk
- Monitoring existed but lacked actionable visibility — failures could occur without immediate awareness
Before remediation was complete, Sonitek was hit with a high-volume inbound email attack, flooding mailboxes with thousands of messages per minute. Legitimate email was delayed, users experienced mailbox slowdowns, and operational risk increased rapidly.
Incident response
We shifted immediately from planned migration work to active defense and containment.
- Rapid inbound defense. Deployed Proofpoint as a first-layer email security gateway to absorb and block malicious traffic before it reached Microsoft 365.
- Attack containment. The flood was stopped, mailbox performance normalized, and legitimate email flow was restored without user disruption.
- Employee protection. Controls were put in place to prevent follow-on threats including business email compromise (BEC) and credential-harvesting attempts often associated with these attacks.
Infrastructure work
Once the environment was stabilized, we completed the original scope — this time on hardened ground.
- DNS cleanup and alignment. Standardized SPF, DKIM, and DMARC across all sending sources and domains.
- DNS migration. Successfully migrated DNS to the new provider with zero email downtime.
- Website transition. Supported the website migration as part of the DNS cutover, validating propagation and service continuity.
- Ongoing visibility. Established monitoring and alerting so authentication issues, delivery failures, or anomalies are caught early.
Outcome
- The email flooding attack was neutralized quickly, with no data loss and no ongoing user impact
- DNS and email authentication are now fully aligned and stable
- The DNS and website migration completed cleanly and safely
- A potential business email compromise scenario was prevented through layered defenses
- Sonitek now operates with confidence in their DNS and email infrastructure — not firefighting
"Highly recommend."
— Tom Bishop, Sonitek