Five Week Nominum Push Results in Customers Flawlessly Upgrading their DNS

August 6, 2008 — Nominum, the leading provider of network naming and addressing technologies, announced today that more than 120 million broadband Internet users are protected against the new DNS vulnerability as Nominum helped its carrier and Internet Service Provider customers upgrade their networks with the latest Nominum DNS software. 

This success highlights the unique role Nominum and its software play in protecting the Internet, and resulted from the strong partnership Nominum has with over 100 carriers worldwide.  The new software adds additional security measures, including UDP Source Port Randomization, to an already rich set of security measures that have been designed to protect global broadband subscribers from DNS cache poisoning and pharming attacks.   Click here to see how cache poisoning attacks work.

“The events of the last five weeks highlight the profound importance of DNS to the proper functioning of the Internet and the critical role Nominum plays in protecting it,” said Tom Tovar CEO of Nominum.  “Our customers around the world demonstrated an extraordinary commitment and ability to address this problem quickly and efficiently.  Their confidence in Nominum, built on a long history of stable and predictable software releases, allowed them to upgrade rapidly, without disrupting their networks or operations.”

Nominum supplies its DNS software to the world’s largest networks that include most major cable operators, DSL broadband carriers and Internet service providers around the world. The company’s DNS software is used by nearly half the global wired Internet broadband users. Click here for a partial list of global customers that leverage Nominum’s DNS software.

"Nominum has a strong track record of delivering software that works the first time," said Jason Livingood, Executive Director of Internet Systems Engineering for Comcast Cable (NASDAQ CMCSA, CMCSK). "We were able to upgrade our servers and secure our High Speed Internet service in advance of the threat without any disruption to our customers."

Continuing Efforts to Keep the Internet Safe

Nominum built on existing industry-leading security features, adding UDP source port randomization to provide additional protection against the vulnerability reported in US-CERT VU#800113.  UDP Source Port Randomization is the industry response to the new DNS vulnerability.  The company leveraged its software’s inherent performance advantage to implement this feature with no degradation in DNS performance or stability, thereby allowing customers to rapidly upgrade without disrupting their broadband services or impacting subscriber experience.  Nominum is prepared to deliver an equal level of protection and performance for service providers that do not already take advantage of its software. 

"Nominum has done its customers and the Internet a great service by working so closely with me, the carriers and the rest of the DNS community on this common threat to the Internet and Nominum has delivered on the trust placed in it by its customers,” said Dan Kaminsky, the security researcher responsible for discovering the DNS vulnerability.  “To know that over a hundred and twenty million users are safe within such a short time after the vulnerability was discovered is excellent and Nominum’s customers set a great example for others to follow." 

Editors Note:  Nominum will continue to track the progress of the protection upgrade, and will maintain a real-time tally of the number of Internet subscribers protected. Click here for the current tally.

For more information regarding Nominum’s DNS platforms and background on the company please visit : www.nominum.com.

Tags and Keywords:  DNS Security Vulnerability, cache poisoning, pharming, Internet security, UDP Source Port Randomization, caching DNS software, Nominum Vantio