Kiwi ISP called the ‘Cavalry’ to increase its defence against Cyberattacks during COVID-19

InternetNZ has collaborated with Medical IT Advisors in a bid to combat heightened cyberattacks due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Medical IT Advisors’ Health Threat Intelligence feed is now combined with the InternetNZ security product, Defenz DNS Firewall.

Medical IT Advisors (MITA) is a Kiwi cybersecurity service provider entrusted by many NZ health organisations, and their NZ Health Threat Intelligence Sharing Platform is a community-based initiative to promote and use local threat intelligence.

Defenz DNS Firewall protects Internet users from phishing attacks, malware, ransomware and botnets helping businesses to manage online security risks. The new feed will be available as an option for all Defenz users.

David Morrison, InternetNZ’s commercial director, says the partnership with MITA is essential to make sure Defenz users are protected from increasing cyberattacks due to COVID-19.

“We have seen health sector customers onboarding with Defenz see immediate value from this new threat feed with online threats being blocked,” says Morrison.

“We want to arm our customers with the best possible defence against known threats on the Internet,” he says.

The partnership with InternetNZ will see MITA taking the lead in the adoption of the DNS Firewall in the NZ Health Sector through the CyberShield.NZ managed security service that includes onboarding, support, incident response and access to advanced security services.

Medical IT Advisors’ director, Faustin Roman adds, “We are excited to work with InternetNZ to ensure any NZ health organisation, from GPs to NGOs and DHBs, have access to elementary yet adequate cybersecurity protection.“

“We strongly believe in “sharing is caring” and this service will protect both individual organisations and also increase the community immunity and resilience to threats targeting NZ health detected daily by our security operations,” he explains.

Defenz already draws on an international cyber threat feed curated by Akamai, which analyses global DNS traffic. The feed is updated in real-time, taking roughly five minutes from detection to blocking.

Earlier this year, Defenz DNS Firewall was integrated with CERT NZ’s local threat feed as part of InternetNZ’s commitment to keeping adding intelligence to make sure Defenz users are protected from known security threats.

“The most vigorous defence is a layered approach to security,” says Morrison.

“No single cybersecurity product is 100% effective by itself but the more layers you can offer your customers the stronger their security will be.”