Today we’re announcing the general availability of our Umbra Secure DNS service – an easy to use cloud DNS service that uses threat intelligence data to protect your network and devices.
DNS is an essential network service, responsible for translating the human-readable names of services into the addresses your computers and equipment actually goes to for whatever you’re requested. Unfortunately, the DNS system is also open to abuse and around 90% of malware, phishing attacks and scams rely on DNS to propagate and function.
The Umbra Secure DNS service uses threat intelligence data from multiple sources (including data collected on our own network) to filter out the dangerous stuff so the online experience you get at work or at home is much safer. It’s simple to set up and requires no maintenance.
We run multiple clusters of DNS servers on multiple networks, so an outage or maintenance at one location won’t cut you off from the internet. We don’t log customer DNS queries and we’ll never sell your data.
You don’t need to install any software on your computers or network equipment, and you don’t even have to use it on every device on the same network. We can provide configuration support if you need it. All you need is a static IP (or block of addresses) from your ISP. We have support for dynamic IPs in certain situations – Contact Us for more information.
Depending on your preferences, configuration can be as simple as telling your router’s DHCP server to hand out our server addresses for DNS, or using our servers as your upstream resolvers. We’re in the process of publishing documentation and we’re always happy to help out, whether you’re getting set up on a single device or for a whole network.
Currently, we have three levels of protection;
- Security Filtering: This service filters out malicious software and advertising, phishing campaigns, command and control for ransomware and worms, newly registered domains and other generally unsavoury parts of the internet.
- Security and Content Filtering: This service does everything the security service does, and also filters out adult content, hate and terrorism, dating and other stuff you generally wouldn’t want in a workplace.
- Security and Advertising Filtering: This service does everything the security service does, and also filters out the most annoying and distracting advertising.
All three filter sets are available to every customer, and you can assign different devices different filtering profiles.
Check out the product page here – the service is provided on a rolling monthly subscription so you can leave any time.