The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) operates on a mandate to run a safe, secure, and reliable .CA domain for all Canadians. Established in the year 2000, it has more than 2.8 million domains under management.
A few years ago, CIRA saw the opportunity to complement its registry revenue with new services. In 2015, CIRA first moved into DNS cybersecurity with the introduction of D-Zone Anycast DNS, a service now used by some ISPs, the Canadian government, and many educational institutions. After the release of this comprehensive Canadian secondary DNS service, many of CIRA’s customers requested a recursive DNS service. Organizations in the education sector were particularly interested in a service with content filtering.
“Once we came up with the concept of a cloud-based cybersecurity service that protects organizations from malware, ransomware, and phishing attacks, we started exploring our options,” explains Mark Gaudet, Business Development and Product Manager at CIRA.