Free Global Cyber Alliance Resources Blocked More Than 300 Million Online Threats Globally in Past Six Months

Anti-Phishing and Web Surfing Security Tools Deployed Across More Than 200 Countries


London, June 6, 2018 – The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) announced today several key milestones in its continuing mission to eradicate cyber risk through concrete actions.

The successful Quad9 DNS security service, which protects users from accessing known malicious websites, has grown more than 35-fold since its launch in November 2017, now reaching more than 120 countries and blocking up to 360 million connections to malicious and compromised websites in the past six months.

In addition, more than 22,000 organizations in 166 countries have used the GCA Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) Setup Guide to check their email domain’s phishing security and spoofing security. Nearly 5,000 organizations have deployed DMARC to protect their employees, partners and customers from being tricked by scammers trying to hijack their web domain to steal personal or financial information.

The announcements came following a meeting of GCA’s Strategic Advisory Committee, which comprises executives from more than 40 organizations spanning the finance, health, telecommunications, education, insurance, cybersecurity, technology, and media sectors, as well as government and law enforcement officials from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“GCA was formed to take collective action to reduce and eradicate cyber risks, and we do this by uniting global communities, implementing concrete solutions, and measuring the effects,” said GCA president and CEO, Phil Reitinger. “We are passionate about helping users access affordable and automatic security solutions, and our progress over the past six months, in collaboration with many dedicated individuals and organizations, inspires us to keep moving forward and tackling new challenges.”

6 months of Quad9

The Quad9 DNS security service, which GCA conceptualized and built with IBM and Packet Clearing House, has scaled quickly since its launch six months ago. The service incorporates multiple threat intelligence feeds and blocks up to two million domain lookups each day, preventing users from connecting to a malicious website. More than a dozen cities were recently added to the service’s network of servers, including Bangkok, Thailand; Vilnius, Lithuania; Columbo, Sri Lanka; Siegerland, Germany; Posadas, Argentina; Luanda, Angola; Kiev, Ukraine; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Enfidha, Tunisia; Harare, Zimbabwe; Lyon, France; and Tallinn, Estonia.

“We selected these regions because our deployment model is specifically designed to push our DNS services out to the very edges of the world in places where most other systems will not or cannot deliver excellent service,” said John Todd, Quad9 executive director. “Everyone should be able to enjoy a base level of security, privacy, and performance on the Internet regardless of location or economic circumstances. The focus as we grow our network footprint is to be in every country and every city in which we can deploy our service, regardless of economic weight, population density, or pre-existing network infrastructure.”

DMARC and Email Security

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Compliance) was developed as a collaborative effort to combat fraudulent email by authenticating the sender of an email. GCA created a Setup Guide that enables world-wide adoption of DMARC, an email authentication standard that helps users protect their email domains from spoofers, spammers and phishing attacks.

The guide has been translated into 17 languages and has been used by more than 13,500 organizations in the past six months. In 2016, the U.K. government mandated that all U.K. government domains enable DMARC. The U.S. government followed suit in late 2017 with the issuance of Binding Operational Directive 18-01, requiring all U.S. federal civilian domains to enable DMARC.

About Global Cyber Alliance

The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) is an international, cross-sector effort dedicated to eradicating cyber risk and improving our connected world. We achieve our mission by uniting global communities, implementing concrete solutions, and measuring the effect.  Learn more at www.globalcyberalliance.org.

 

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