diff --git a/src/analyzer/protocol/dns/DNS.cc b/src/analyzer/protocol/dns/DNS.cc
index b48e516707..c43888cb18 100644
--- a/src/analyzer/protocol/dns/DNS.cc
+++ b/src/analyzer/protocol/dns/DNS.cc
@@ -1706,6 +1706,15 @@ bool DNS_Interpreter::ParseRR_SVCB(detail::DNS_MsgInfo* msg, const u_char*& data
 		if ( ! name_end )
 			return false;
 
+		// target name can be root - in this case the alternative endpoint is
+		// qname itself. make sure that we print "." instead of an empty string
+		if ( name_end - target_name == 0 )
+			{
+			target_name[0] = '.';
+			target_name[1] = '\0';
+			name_end = target_name+1;
+			}
+
 		SVCB_DATA svcb_data = {
 			.svc_priority = svc_priority,
 			.target_name = new String(target_name, name_end - target_name, true),
@@ -1724,6 +1733,7 @@ bool DNS_Interpreter::ParseRR_SVCB(detail::DNS_MsgInfo* msg, const u_char*& data
 				analyzer->EnqueueConnEvent(dns_HTTPS, analyzer->ConnVal(), msg->BuildHdrVal(),
 		                           msg->BuildAnswerVal(), msg->BuildSVCB_Val(&svcb_data));
 				break;
+			default: break; // unreachable. for suppressing compiler warnings.
 		}
 		return true;
 	}
diff --git a/testing/btest/Baseline/scripts.base.protocols.dns.https/output b/testing/btest/Baseline/scripts.base.protocols.dns.https/output
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c94e491f7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/testing/btest/Baseline/scripts.base.protocols.dns.https/output
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+[svc_priority=1, target_name=., svc_params={
+
+}]
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/testing/btest/Traces/dns-https.pcap b/testing/btest/Traces/dns-https.pcap
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..b2c397e62e
Binary files /dev/null and b/testing/btest/Traces/dns-https.pcap differ
diff --git a/testing/btest/scripts/base/protocols/dns/svcb.zeek b/testing/btest/scripts/base/protocols/dns/https.zeek
similarity index 100%
rename from testing/btest/scripts/base/protocols/dns/svcb.zeek
rename to testing/btest/scripts/base/protocols/dns/https.zeek