Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Dot-com da-bomb Verisign fires off an OpenDNS rival

Domain biz offers 'DNS Firewall'

Operator of the dot-com registry Verisign has launched a rival to popular online security service OpenDNS, called DNS Firewall.

Announcing the service in a blog post, Verisign's Michael Kaczmarek said that protecting a company from cyberattacks was "becoming increasingly difficult and expensive," and pointed out that hackers are increasingly getting around the traditional network firewall by targeting users.

Verisign's new DNS Firewall is cloud-based, and offers "robust protection from unwanted content, malware and advanced persistent threats." It claims the system is easy to configure and will work out significantly cheaper than traditional (hardware) network protection.

The service will identify global and local threats as was identify potential botnets and provide editable content filters. It is designed to protect businesses from a range of online threats from malware to phishing and even targeted attacks.

Implementing it requires you to sign up to the service – no word yet on pricing – and then simply change your DNS settings to run its through Verisign.

The service has an existing rival in OpenDNS – a very similar recursive DNS service that Cisco will acquire by the first quarter of next year. OpenDNS has grown dramatically in recent years, and claims it has 2,000 paying customers alongside many more users of its free service. It charges $28 per user per year for its most basic package; more advanced packages are negotiated on a per-customer basis.

Verisign is likely to be targeting the large corporate market, using its long history as a core DNS provider (it not only runs dot-com, the largest registry in the world by some distance, but also operates the internet's 'A' root.)

We spoke to OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch about his new rival, and he was surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

"Adding security to one of the most important control points on the Internet, the DNS, is important, and I am happy to see focus here from Verisign," he told us. "I'm surprised it took them this long to recognize the critical nature of DNS for enterprise customers."

He added cheekily: "I look forward to next year when I hope they will catch up to our 2011 feature set."

According to Verisign's Kaczmarek, citing McAfee, there was a 75 per cent increase in new malware in 2014. He also notes that the average data breach will cost a large organization $3.8m. ®

The first edition of this article compared DNS Firewall to Cloudflare, a related but different DNS service. DNS Firewall and OpenDNS offer recursive DNS services whereas Cloudflare offers an authoritative DNS service.

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like