Nominum boosts DNS for security, new services

Nominum, which makes one of the most widely used commercial DNS database platforms, recently added new capabilities to its core platform that will enable service providers to aggregate and, in real-time, process billions of records about Internet domains – including whether they are in some way malicious.

With that information, service providers can deliver better security services -- including protection from DNS attacks and anti-malware, -phishing or –spam services -- as well as content-based services like parental controls.

The new products are software enhancements to Nominum’s Vantio caching DNS platform, which today is used by more than 100 Internet service providers serving more than 150 million broadband households. The new Centris server aggregates and processes threats – mainly in the form of white/black lists – and is capable of tracking up to 1 billion malicious sites. The server synchronizes with a second new module, Malicious Domain Redirection (MDR) Service Delivery, which provides real-time enforcement capabilities, including redirecting user requests for malicious destinations to service-provider-managed notification and information pages. The two new software modules are part of a new over-arching DNS architecture from Nominum, which the company dubs TRUE, for Trusted Response and Universal Enforcement.

In short, the new products aim to augment the core task of DNS – routing user requests to the correct Web sites – with a more fine-grained approach to DNS routing that puts service providers in the position to improve the experience for its Internet users, potentially as a value-added, revenue-producing service.

“We can aggregate threat lists in real time and process billions of records on a single server,” said Gopala Tumuluri, Nominum’s vice president of marketing. “We then transmit that information out to real-time enforcement points on the network, where applications and threats can be segregated out on the network.”