IBM Security Unveils Free Service to Protect Businesses

IBM Security along with non-profit research organisation Packet Clearing House (PCH) and The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) on Thursday launched a free service to provide consumers and businesses extra privacy and security protection.

The new "Quad9 Domain Name System" (DNS) service will protect users from accessing millions of malicious Internet sites known to steal personal information, infect users with ransomware and malware, or conduct fraudulent activity.

"With Quad9, we're putting that data to work for the industry in an open way and further enriching those insights via the community of users," said Jim Brennan, Vice President, Strategy and Offering Management, IBM Security.

"Quad9" provides an automated security solution.

Every website has a unique numerical address - known as an IP address.

To make it easier to navigate the Internet, those numeric addresses are translated to company names or words we can remember, understand and search.

"Quad9" helps translate those numeric addresses into the URLs we are all familiar with, while adding in a layer of security and privacy before users land on the web address.

Protecting against attacks by blocking them through DNS has been available for a long time, but has not been used widely.

"Quad9 is memorable, easy to use, relies on excellent and broad threat information, protects privacy, and security and is free," added Philip Reitinger, President and CEO of The Global Cyber Alliance.