Pierluigi Paganini
November 20, 2017
The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) has launched the Quad9 DNS service (9.9.9.9), a new free Domain Name Service resolver that will check user’s requests against the IBM X-Force’s threat intelligence database.
The Quad9 DNS service non only offer common resolution services implemented by DNSs but it will also add the security checks to avoid you will visit one of the the 40 billion malicious websites and images X-Force marked as dangerous.
The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) was co-founded by a partnership of law enforcement and research organizations (City of London Police, the District Attorney of New York County and the Center for Internet Security) focused on combating systemic cyber risk in real, measurable ways.
GCA also coordinated the threat intelligence community to incorporate feeds from 18 other partners, “including Abuse.ch, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, Bambenek Consulting, F-Secure, mnemonic, 360Netlab, Hybrid Analysis GmbH, Proofpoint, RiskIQ, and ThreatSTOP.”
Back in 1988 some large /8 blocks of IPv4 addresses were assigned in whole to single organizations or related groups of organizations, either by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), through the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), or a regional Internet registry.
Each /8 block contains 224 = 16,777,216 addresses, and IBM secured the 9.0.0.0/8 block which let the company dedicate 9.9.9.9 to the project.
“IBM Security, Packet Clearing House (PCH) and The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) today launched a free service that gives consumers and businesses added privacy and security as they access the internet. The new Quad9 Domain Name System (DNS) service protects users from accessing millions of malicious internet sites known to steal personal information, infect users with ransomware and malware, or conduct fraudulent activity.” reads the announcement published by the GCA.
According to the GCA, Quad9 has no impact on the speed of the connections, it is leveraging the Packet Clearing House global assets around the world with 70 points of presence in 40 countries.
The alliance believes that Quad9 points of presence will double over the next 18 months, further improving the speed, performance, privacy and security for users globally.
The organization is specifically committed to protect the users’ privacy, Quad9 service doesn’t retain request data.
“Information about the websites consumers visit, where they live and what device they use are often captured by some DNS services and used for marketing or other purposes”, it said.
The Quad9 service aims to cover not only traditional PCs and laptops, but can also Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as smart thermostats and connected home appliances. These devices often do not receive important security updates and are also difficult to secure with traditional anti-virus tools, yet remain connected to the internet leaving them vulnerable to hackers.
Full instructions on what a DNS service does and how to switch to Quad9 can be found here.
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(Security Affairs – Quad9 DNS service, Internet)
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