DNS filtering

Protection and prevention

For many years, cyber security sought to curb threats on the internet by examining and neutralizing dangerous and inappropriate contents after they had been downloaded from the network to a physical or virtual device.  Over the years, however, we have witnessed the proliferation of increasingly dangerous, self-installing, and invisible malware, pages cloned to perfection for the purposes of scams and fraud, illegal sales, and explicit contents uploaded just about everywhere. 

Along with the dangers, human errors, careless behavior, and the time it takes to analyze risky contents have all increased. Therefore, today, advanced information security aims at preventing threats before they are downloaded.  DNS, or Domain Name System, is that protocol that translates a name which is easily remembered by humans (e.g., flashstart.com) into an IP address, i.e., a series of numbers that can be understood by machines in charge of resolving the human request. 

Monitoring the activity of domains, in order to block DNS resolution in advance when they fall into undesirable categories, the DNS Filtering is a global challenge at which FlashStart excels in both affordability and technology.

How FlashStart DNS filtering works

FlashStart’s DNS filtering technology goes beyond just blacklisting URLs via an active AI engine: FlashStart’s artificial intelligence scans about fifty thousand new domains each day, virtually all newly acquired web spaces, in order to build new pages, as well as having already scanned 190 million sites (ninety-five percent of those currently active) and having classified their domains into eighty-five categories that can be used as system blacklists. 

The classification of domains leads to much more stable filtering criteria than the URL blacklists that were used years ago because domains are purchased, trackable spaces, while urls can be changed daily at no cost.  FlashStart’s intelligence, relying on DNS, manages to filter about five billion access requests every day in more than 140 countries.  Out of 340 million blocked pages, about eight percent involve malware threats and scams, while the remaining ninety-two percent are inappropriate contents. 

In fact, based on business and personal needs, network administrators can block any category of domains, including social sites, games, and streaming, which may have nothing inappropriate about them but can cause distractions during certain business and educational hours.

This is FlashStart’s model of excellence in DNS filtering!