Security | News
OpenDNS Deployed by Half of U.S. Universities
Half of America's colleges and universities are using OpenDNS (Domain Name Service) to protect against phishing, botnets, and malware, according to the San Francisco, CA, company.
OpenDNS, which can be used either campus-wide, or for dorms, departments, faculty lounges, or computer labs, is designed to prevent infections from spreading over a network.
Features include:
- Preset or customizable filters by website or category;
- Temporary override access to specific individuals for sites that are typically blocked;
- A Web-based dashboard to pull reports and analyze usage; and
- Protection for devices connected through wireless routers or access points.
OpenDNS has prevented a significant amount of computer network attacks, according to Salvador Ortega, director of enterprise network security at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, which has 12,714 students.
"OpenDNS is an extremely effective and flexible service that we have found in protecting Vanderbilt University's computing infrastructure against Web-based malware attacks," said Ortega. "In the last six months, we have prevented the visit to 2.5 million malware, phishing, and bot related sites."
David Kleiner, manager of enterprise network engineering at George Washington University, said the process to deploy OpenDNS is simple. The school, located in the nation's capitol, has approximately 25,000 students.
"By simply changing DNS settings, we were able to deploy OpenDNS in 20 minutes and instantly get our entire network and users protected," said Kleiner. "With OpenDNS Enterprise, we’ve taken a more proactive approach to blocking malware before it hits our networks and machines rather then spending large amounts of time and resources trying to mitigate it."
Open DNS is also used by kindergarten- through 12th-grade public school districts, including districts in Philadelphia, PA; Detroit, MI; San Diego, CA; and Baltimore, MD.
For more information, visit opendns.com.
About the Author
Tim Sohn is a 10-year veteran of the news business, having served in capacities from reporter to editor-in-chief of a variety of publications including Web sites, daily and weekly newspapers, consumer and trade magazines, and wire services. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @editortim.
