Nominum's Intelligent DNS Gives Service Providers Commanding Advantage in Fight against Internet Threats

Automatic Propagation of Threat Data across Networks for Instantaneous Enforcement

Redwood City, Calif. – August 18, 2009 — Nominum, the leader in intelligent network naming and addressing solutions, today announced delivery of the third generation of its Trusted Response and Universal Enforcement (TRUE) ArchitectureTM, which allows service providers to provide instant and automatic protection to end users against a wide range of Internet threats as soon as they are discovered.  These threats include botnets, phishing, illegal content, and many other forms of malware.  By leveraging Intelligent DNS systems, the TRUE Architecture ensures Internet users have a safe, secure and efficient Internet experience and represents a new era for the DNS and its critical role in the Internet. 

Leveraging the ubiquity of DNS with an Intelligent DNS system is necessary to overcome the increasingly dynamic nature of today’s Internet threats.  Attackers take advantage of the shortcomings of legacy DNS systems to continuously change the profile of their exploits in order to sustain their effectiveness and inflict broader damage on the Internet.  To cite just one highly visible recent example, the Conficker worm, which has infected more than 10 million PCs around the world used the DNS as a rendezvous point for command and control.  This worm effectively turned the DNS into an ally of the attackers.  Nominum’s intelligent DNS systems were able to track, block, and isolate the Conficker worm and identify infected hosts.   

The third-generation TRUE Architecture substantially advances the state of the art with security measures unavailable in any legacy DNS system.  A summary of the key features and benefits of the third generation TRUE Architecture is below: 
• Personalized Services can be deployed across the provider network for compliance and protection by leveraging the highly scalable, data efficient, threat aggregation platform.  Millions of discrete threats can now be monitored across the network and efficiently bundled into personalized service options for end users such as illegal content blocking, anti-phishing, botnet protection, parental controls and others. Nominum has already pre-integrated threat data to protect against Conficker and to prevent access to illegal child exploitation content on the Internet. 
• Automated Provisioning of Threat Data across the Network enables network-wide policy enforcement against millions of malicious, illegal or inappropriate Internet destinations with no manual intervention.  Automation reduces the delay, to as little as a few seconds, between the time a new threat is discovered and when it is acted on.   
• Real-Time Visibility (RTV) for the first time gives service providers complete insight into network activity with logging, real time analysis and reporting for every single DNS transaction without impacting performance and latency.  These real time capabilities allow informed policies, based on detailed data, analysis and reporting, therefore making it easier to spot threats and proactively defend against rogue activity.   
• Discovery Mode is a powerful risk assessment tool that is valuable for gauging the scope and sources of threats before taking enforcement action.  For instance, botnet command and control sites could be monitored to find how many hosts are infected with botnet viruses and how often they access the command and control sites. This tool can also help study behavioral evolutions of various threats for better policy making that leads to better protection for all end users.
• Confidentiality of Sensitive Data Feeds prevents inadvertent disclosure or theft of lists of web sites hosting unwanted or illegal content, such as child exploitation images.  Confidentiality is maintained end-to-end to eliminate the negative publicity and potential legal liability that disclosure would bring.

For details of an implementation of Nominum’s intelligent DNS using the TRUE architecture please see this case study:  http://www.nominum.com/more_info/colt_prevents_access_to_illegal_web_sites.php

Paving the Way for New Services, Compliance with Government Mandates
The capabilities available in the third-generation TRUE architecture also offer service providers the opportunity to deliver baseline protections and new value-added security services to protect end user subscribers.  Additionally, the capabilities allow ISPs to immediately and effectively comply with growing regulatory requirements, particularly against child exploitation content and illegal gambling sites. Service providers can implement network-based protections that supplement existing desktop security software offerings as well as extend protections to devices and applications that are not currently covered, such as mobile devices or game consoles.

“Security issues represent an obligation and an opportunity for service providers. With these new capabilities, Nominum removes all operational and deployment barriers for providers to deliver new services and meet government mandates in the shortest possible time,” said Gopala Tumuluri, vice president of marketing and business development at Nominum. “By building on existing Nominum DNS investments, ISPs can deliver the additional services with minimum investment, and no changes to the network architecture.”

Pricing and Availability
All products are software only, generally available and may be purchased separately. Pricing is configuration dependent.