What has NCSC announced?
Earlier in October 2024 the National Cyber Security Centre announced that its PDNS for Schools service is now available to multi-academy trusts, academies, independent schools and school internet service providers (ISPs). As a leading educational ISP we have put together an explanation of what this means for schools.
What is a PDNS service? And how does it work?
PDNS stands for Protective Domain Name System, a security system designed to help keep you safe when browsing the internet. It is a way to block access to known malicious or suspicious online destinations such as websites known to host malware, ransomware, viruses and other cyber security threats.
To connect to a website or other internet resource, your device sends a request to a DNS service to convert the website’s name (such as rm.com) into its IP address, a set of numbers that lets your device know where to find that website. The DNS system is like a foreign language dictionary that translates from one to the other.
Protective DNS steps in during this process to check if the requested site is safe or may lead to dangerous or malicious content like a phishing site or malware. If the PDNS service detects that the website could be harmful, it blocks the connection and prevents your device from reaching the site. Other traffic passes through to its destination as normal.
What does this mean for RM broadband customers?
The NCSC announcement tells education establishments to ask their DNS provider to register for PDNS. The internet service provider is usually the DNS provider.
RM broadband customers do not need to take any action; in fact, changing your RM DNS may impact your other RM Services. As part of our ever-evolving suite of protective services, RM has been working with the NCSC to implement PDNS across our entire estate. It is currently in trial with several RM broadband customers, and we plan to launch the service for all our customers on January 10th, 2025.
Incorporating the NCSC PDNS will form part of the additional protections provided on your broadband service. It will be included for RM broadband customers at no additional cost for schools of all types, not just those mentioned in the NCSC announcement.
If you’re not an RM broadband customer you should ask your broadband supplier about their plans to implement the NCSC PDNS service. If they cannot provide this important protection, consider switching to one that can – RM.
