infoTECH Feature

November 17, 2015

DDI Leader Infoblox Explains Security Challenges & Discusses Company Growth

The DNS protocol was created more than 20 years ago to enable computers to more easily connect to one another. But no one at the time thought DNS would be used to connect so many things, so security was not a major consideration at that point. But now the use of DNS is widespread, and we’re beginning to understand why implementing DNS security is important.

There have been at least a couple major retail store cases in which credit cards that were hacked were pulled out via DNS servers, said Arya Barirani, vice president of product marketing atInfoblox (News - Alert), and we know of many DNS outages that were DDoS attacks.

“We see those almost on a daily basis,” he said during an interview with me last week at TMC (News - Alert)Editor’s Day Silicon Valley.

Cache poisoning, in which interlopers change the IP destination addresses of the cache so end users are sent to a false version of a website, is another common DNS-related hack, which actually happened to The New York Times and Twitter (News - Alert), Barirani said. And if there’s malware in the network it can use DNS to erect to botnet controllers, he added, so the bad guys can send bad stuff on an ongoing basis.

To prevent those kinds of things, and allow for more afford manageability of server policy and software upgrades, Infoblox sells DNS, DHCP, and IP address management – or DDI – solutions. In fact, with about half the market share in the DDI space, Infoblox is considered the leader in this product category.

Its competitors include Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert), BlueCat, BT (News - Alert) Diamond, Cisco, EfficientIP, FusionLayer, Men & Mice, Microsoft, and SolarWinds. Gartner (News - Alert) notes Infoblox’s deep and broad product set; high customer satisfaction, easy-to-use graphical user interface; large number of skilled IT administrators familiar with its product; integration with cloud and virtualization solutions including Microsoft (News  - Alert), VMware and OpenStack; and first to market status on global load balancing are among the company’s differentiators. It adds that Infoblox is also known for its premium prices, and that some customers have noted the vendor’s shorter refresh cycles, and need for more devices.

Infoblox appliances – which are available as boxes and as software-only solutions – are used by banks, financial firms, retailers, service providers, trading floors, and other organizations. Infoblox’s 8,300 customers include such well-known businesses as Airbus, Amgen, AT&T, Barclays, KDDI, Nokia (News - Alert), Staples, Verizon (News  - Alert), and VMware.

According to Gartner, most organizations with more than 15,000 employees and 50,000 IP addresses in use already have DDI solutions in place. Such solutions, the research and consulting organization says, can reduce a company’s operational expenditures on DDI by 50 percent or more.

Inflox, which has been growing at 20 to 21 percent, is working to continue its growth in the DDI arena by building operations in Europe and Asia, and the company expects to introduce a SaaS (News - Alert)-based offering in the next 12 to 18 months.




Edited by Kyle Piscioniere
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