Edge Product Update: Navigation ease, Reduce Attack Surface, and Anycast Support

The latest DNS Edge product update is now here! This post summarizes all of the exciting new features contained in this new release. Check it out!

Green pushpin in a haystack symbolizing pinpointing threats and policies in vast DNS traffic with BlueCat Edge
Key Takeaways
  • The September 2018 BlueCat DNS Edge release adds interactive homepage dashboard capabilities that allow operators to highlight spikes in DNS activity and auto-generate focused search queries for investigation.
  • Hyperlinked policy details and related components in the DNS request details panel enable quick navigation and immediate updates, effectively turning the UI into a DNS and policy lookup tool.
  • New policy controls allow organizations to strictly limit DNS-based access to sensitive data (such as intellectual property, financial, PII, or patient data) to predefined privileged source IP addresses.
  • By blocking DNS queries from non-approved sources and logging these attempts, Edge helps identify potentially malicious activity from bad actors or compromised systems and reduces the overall digital attack surface.
  • Native Anycast support for BGP and OSPF allows Edge to participate in Anycast-based DNS architectures, improving response latency and service availability.
  • With Anycast enabled, Edge maintains real-time visibility into internal and external DNS requests, correlating source IP, query, and response while enforcing DNS security policies across distributed environments.

BlueCat is proud to introduce enhancements to BlueCat DNS Edge™ (Edge). The September 2018 release of Edge introduces easier navigation, new policy control to reduce attack surface, and Anycast support.

Easier Navigation with UI Enhancements

Domain Name System (DNS) records can generate a lot of log data. With Edge you now can more easily identify and take action on anomalies. The Edge September 2018 release makes it easy to investigate a spike of DNS activity with interactive capabilities added to the homepage dashboard. Simply highlight peaks of interest and Edge will auto-populate a search command to expose just those queries for further review.

Highlight spikes in DNS activity with new interactive capabilities to drill-down and view these DNS logs.
Investigate selected DNS logs selected from the spike in activity on the homepage.

Operators can take DNS queries under the microscope with this panel and easy lookup tool. You can investigate and Identify related policy details or components that are now hyperlinked.  These panel views are organized as tabs in the view panel on a selected DNS request. Simply right-click on a hyperlink to open a new session on that component in a separate browser tab.

Details panel on DNS logs includes hyperlinked components to explore further details.
Click to open hyperlinked components in tabs available from within the same details panel.

With quick access to related policies and other information, the details panel becomes a lookup tool. An operator can quickly view details and make immediate updates.

Reduce attack surface with Policy Control: Protect against DNS attacks on protected data

To protect data, it requires layering security controls and needs to include the DNS protocol. Edge limits access to data like intellectual property, finance or personally identifiable information, and patient data. Only a set of privileged source IP addresses can access such sensitive data.

The Edge September 2018 release makes it possible to block all access except for defined sources on your network. You can reduce your digital attack surface and bolster your organization’s overall security posture. Largely by preventing DNS access to data, operating systems, or services you care most about.

Reviewing DNS logs within Edge of blocked attempts indicates potentially malicious activity from bad actors or compromised systems. Edge can be used to investigate surrounding DNS activity from external threat systems.

Easily define source IP addresses to exclude when creating a new policy.

Anycast Support

Edge, as part of your DNS infrastructure, now natively supports Anycast for Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocols. Organizations using Anycast are afforded optimized response latency and improved service availability. Thereby boosting user experience; now supported with the Edge September 2018 release.

With Edge,  Anycast customers gain real-time visibility of DNS activity and policy control. Allowing customers to limit access and protect against DNS-based attack vectors. Edge provides visibility of both internal and external DNS requests, correlating originating IP address, query and response.

Learn more about Edge and the new September 2018 release updates.


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Mark is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at BlueCat Networks.

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