Ever heard of NS firewalls? Of course, you have. DNS firewalls have been around for more than 20 years, and they can actually benefit your business. But for that, first, understand how it actually works. DNS stands for Domain Name System. These are the servers that are the internet’s directory assistants who match hostnames to their respective IP addresses. For example, when you type www.cmit.com into your browser, your entry goes to a DNS server, which then provides the IP address linked to it. That was DNS, but what about the firewalls?
DNS firewalls work in a way that when you send an entry, the DNS server will evaluate the hostname, IP address, and compare it against a list of known threats before connecting it to the respective address. If the firewall finds the entry safe, then only it will return the address. If the DNS firewall detects a threat, the server will redirect you to a verified and safe landing page. The DNS security system is based on the principle of blocking the threat before it has the chance to reach you. DNS firewalls have actually been around for two decades, but now these are being implemented to safeguard old technology. DNS firewalls can play an enormous benefit not just for businesses but individuals too. Here are some issues DNS firewalls can help resolve-
- For organizations with multiple offices at different locations, they need a single location to monitor all the threats and the whole teams’ behavior. DNS firewalls help with that. All DNS traffic can be pointed towards a specific location, where it can be logged and tracked. You can get to monitor where URLs are going along with the capability to block any links that pose potential threats.
- Since everyone working remotely and it is difficult to monitor the network your employees are using at home. The remote workers are the biggest threats today for small and big companies. You don’t know what threats they may encounter as you don’t know where they are working from or anything about their surfing habits. Yes, VPN can be used to secure communication to some extent what there is no way for you to find out what are they doing on the corporate laptop. By using a DNS firewall, you can eliminate all potential threats and control the content being accessed.
- DNS firewalls add another layer of security to your IT. By simply adding a DNS firewall on your browser, you can block a lot of threats before they can harm your data. Through unified threat management, you can be aware of and avoid threats such as malware, ransomware, system hijacking, and save yourself from compromised data security.
- By leveraging a DNS firewall, you also secure your network from external threats like cache poisoning that misdirects users to malicious and dangerous sites. The DNS firewalls are a great precautionary step that can save from the potential dangers of not using them.
