OpenDNS, the domain-name-server-provider-turned-security-company, has raised an undisclosed second round of capital as a Series B, and added Stefan Dyckerhoff from Sutter Hill Ventures to its board. The company, which last year expanded from DNS services to providing security optimized for today’s cloud environment, has seen its customer base grow significantly from 3,500 to 7,000 enterprise customers. The funding will help it add staff and data centers to support the Umbrella security offering.
Domain name servers are an integral part of the internet, containing the IP address of domain names you type into a browser. When a user types in a URL, the computer sends the request to a DNS server that then tells your computer the site’s IP address. When it comes to security, control of DNS servers allows OpenDNS to provide a level of security no matter where the person logging into a network sits, because a company can enforce its policies at the domain name server, essentially refusing employees access to questionable or malicious sites before the content ever gets to the device. It also stops attacks way out in the internet as opposed to on the corporate network.
For those who want to know more about security threats facing corporations here’s a video interview with OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch discussing how the adoption of the cloud and geopolitical instability has led to a new level of security threats:
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