5 Reasons DNS Protection takes the Headache out of Filtering Multiple Locations

Posted by Geraldine Hunt on Fri, Feb 1st, 2019

In today’s Internet-driven world, a web filtering solution is no longer an option, but a necessity.  With the introduction of up to up to 285,000 new malware samples every day, endpoint protection alone cannot protect your devices from internet deployed malware.  Even for users who insist that they do not access sites that are potentially dangerous, some sort of web-based anti-malware filtering system is essential.  Even large, well-known reputable websites can be vulnerable. Hackers persistently access legitimate websites to deposit code that is then downloaded to unsuspecting site visitors.

Whether it is a purely malicious website or a drive-by download, the web session of a user can become compromised by the simple act of visiting a site, however brief that visit.  Throw in the other potential dangers of parked sites, typosquatting or zero-day web links, and the thought of surfing the internet can seem like a careless risk.

If there is no doubting the necessity of a modern day web filtering solution, then the question becomes what type of solution is best for your organization?  One of the main considerations you must consider is how you will protect users in multiple locations.  This not only includes mobile users who leave the secure compound of the secure perimeter but users at branch offices that may reside hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the corporate data center.  As a result, many companies are turning to a cloud-based DNS filtering solution to secure their internet sessions.

Below are five situations where DNS filtering proves the better solution:

1. Easy Deployment and Management

If you are a multi-region geographical organization, then you are aware of the challenges of deploying and implementing hardware-based solutions at branch offices.  There is rarely a high-level technician stationed at these remote offices, which means that an appropriate technician must be dispatched from the central office.  This can potentially result in long deployment delays and interruptions at the corporate office itself.  A DNS cloud filtering solution requires no hardware.  It only requires a simple configuration to either your internal DNS servers or the DNS settings of your clients, all of which can be implemented by network policies and image deployments.  You can then manage all of your users from one pane of glass regardless of their location.

2. Faster Speeds for Backhauled Architectures

In the fever to complete their digital transformations, companies are migrating services, applications, and data to the cloud.  Some are striving to transform to a cloud-first network.  There is just one problem, their WAN architectures are not designed for a cloud-first world.  That’s because companies have relied on the architecture of 20 years ago where all internet traffic is backhauled to the corporate office to the ISP gateway.  This means that internet performance for branch locations is penalized over that of the users based at the corporate office.  While some companies are working on integrating SD-WAN and edge computing solutions to solve this dilemma, most enterprises must seek incremental solutions to improve speed.  Because DNS filtering takes place during the DNS query, it is faster than traditional URL based filtering.  While the disparity in speed per session may seem insignificant, this advantage begins to pay dividends for companies that have large volumes of backhauled Internet traffic.

3. Cloud-Based DNS Filtering is Ideal for Edge Computing Environments

Companies are increasingly turning to SD-WAN and edge computing solutions to increase performance and security at their branch locations.  The reasons are twofold.  With the increased reliance of SaaS-based applications, IT managers are recognizing the need for basic internet workloads such as Office 365, CRM SaaS or basic web searches to be routed straight to the Internet rather than backhauled over the company WAN.  The problem then becomes how to protect those remote web sessions when the traditional web filtering appliance solution resides at the corporate data center.  The answer is a cloud-based DNS filtering solution that provides security coverage for all of your locations equally. 

4. Multitenant Management for MSPs

As an MSP with many clients to manage, the last thing you need is another appliance to implement at each of your locations.  Backhauling their internet back to your location presents problems too.  Appliance-based solutions require perpetual patching and updating and represent a single point of failure.  A superior alternative is a cloud-based DNS filtering solution such as WebTitan that not only offers fast secure web protection for your clients but provides multitenant manageability so that you can apply separate policies for all of your clients, yet manage them through a single portal. 

5. Protect Mobile Users Wherever They Go

Whether you are a company with salespeople and business leaders on the go or a school system implementing a one-to-one laptop program, you need to protect your users for both on and off premise environments.  Rather than settling for on premise hardware-based solutions that requires enterprise device traffic to be backhauled back to the data center, a cloud-based solution allows for direct connect filtering to the internet no matter where your users are located.  For those organizations who require user based policy filtering, a small AD integrated client can be installed that will assure users of the same consistent web experience both on and off premise.

WebTitan Cloud offers cloud-based DNS Filtering to bring powerful enterprise filtering to all your users, regardless of location. If you would like more information about DNS based web filtering do not hesitate to contact us or sign for our free trial of WebTitan Cloud today.