InternetNZ has moved to make New Zealand’s internet a little safer with their announcement Tuesday their security product, Defenz DNS Firewall, is now consuming CERT NZ’s local threat feed.
Defenz DNS Firewall, the result of a tie-up between InternetNZ, New Zealand’s country code top-level domain (ccTLD) manger and the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), the .ca ccTLD manager, protects Internet users from phishing attacks, malware, ransomware and botnets helping to manage online security risks.
The DNS firewall already draws on an international cyberthreat feed curated by Akamai which analyses global DNS traffic. The feed is updated in real time, taking roughly five minutes from detection to blocking.
InternetNZ’s Commercial Director, David Morrison, says the combination of both international and national intelligence broadens the number of security risks detected, with more threat feeds expected to be added later this year.
“It’s important to InternetNZ to keep adding intelligence to Defenz to make sure our customers are protected from known security threats,” says Morrison.
“We’re thrilled to have introduced CERT NZ’s threat feed to Defenz and are already seeing New Zealand specific threats blocked by the product as a result.”
“Phishing is consistently the initial vector of compromise for many of the incidents we see. The CERT NZ threat feed was created to give users a significant boost in their cyber defenses by blocking access to malicious sites that have been reported to us,” says Declan Ingram, Deputy Director at CERT NZ.
In 2019, CERT NZ saw 1,934 reports of phishing and credential harvesting, up 25% from 2018. 15% of reports made to CERT NZ in 2019 had some form of financial loss, with a total value of $16.7 million.
“Cyber security attacks can result in big financial and reputational damage for organisations, said Morrison.
“Defenz identifies and stops online threats at the DNS layer, complementing an organisation’s security stack and supporting efforts to avoid organisational damage.”
Defenz Domain Name System (DNS) Firewall is available for a free four month trial. This extended trial, originally announced in early June, is offered to organisations and businesses, Internet Service Providers and Managed Service Providers, tertiary education, healthcare, nonprofit and government organisations who sign up before 30 September 2020.