Best Software for 2025 is now live!
By CIRA
Show rating breakdown
Save to My Lists
Claimed
Claimed

Top Rated CIRA DNS Firewall Alternatives

CIRA DNS Firewall Reviews & Product Details

Verified User in Primary/Secondary Education
AP
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

The DNS firewall is simple to implement and monitor. It gives you information that allows you to dig into possible compromised devices. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

There is nothing about the product at this point that I dislike. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering CIRA DNS Firewall:

This is an effective solution to social engineering hacks and compromised devices within you network. By redirecting the traffic the attacks become ineffective. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

The DNS firewall adds a layer of protection against social engineered security threats, it allow us some security for those that can't help but click phishing links. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

CIRA DNS Firewall Overview

What is CIRA DNS Firewall?

Uniquely Canadian cybersecurity delivered by CIRA. The CIRA DNS Firewall delivers protection against malware and phishing attacks by blocking access to malicious websites at the DNS layer. And it does this only from servers located in Canada to improve performance, data privacy, and sovereignty. Combining advanced data science, a global network for threat detection and decades of experience managing critical infrastructure to deliver a cost-effective and easy way to add to your defence-in-depth strategy. The unique threat intelligence is provided by Akamai and includes multiple additional feeds, like that from the Canadian Center for Cybersecurity. After-all you don't really have depth if your threat information all comes from the same source. On average we add more than 100,000 net new malicious URLs to the block list every day, and we do it within 14 minutes of the first query anywhere on the global internet. Protecting over 3 million Canadians and counting. As a non-profit, we work closely with network operators in Canada, keep all data sovereign and private, and give-back through grant programs and helps to build Canada's internet infrastructure.

CIRA DNS Firewall Details
Languages Supported
English, French
Show LessShow More
Product Description

CIRA DNS Firewall blocks access to malicious content before it ever makes it to network & stops the command and control of ransomware.


Seller Details
Seller
CIRA
Year Founded
2000
HQ Location
Ottawa
LinkedIn® Page
www.linkedin.com
167 employees on LinkedIn®

MB
Overview Provided by:

Recent CIRA DNS Firewall Reviews

TD
Trent D.Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
5.0 out of 5
"Set it and forget it security at it's finest."
D-Zone was very easy to implement. I routed all of our division's dns requests to D-Zone. Then went and tweaked the settings based on the IP addr...
Verified User
A
Verified UserSmall-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
5.0 out of 5
"Great Option to Limit Advertising and Unwanted Websites"
The firewall is easy to configure and has an option to temporarily disable in order to test sites.
Verified User
A
Verified UserMid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
5.0 out of 5
"CIRA DNS Firewall is worth the small investment"
It is straightforward to set up and manage. We use it as another security layer. A few times a month, it catches something our other systems missed.
Security Badge
This seller hasn't added their security information yet. Let them know that you'd like them to add it.
0 people requested security information

CIRA DNS Firewall Media

CIRA DNS Firewall Demo - Dashboard view of activity
Watch botnet, malware, phishing and web filtering activity.
CIRA DNS Firewall Demo - Customizable content filtering
Over 60 content categories to allow control over public and private network environments.
CIRA DNS Firewall Demo - Branded block pages
Provide instructions to your users at point-of-click.
CIRA DNS Firewall Demo - API
Integrate into security information and event management (SIEM), professional service applications (PSA), or other dashboard environments.
Answer a few questions to help the CIRA DNS Firewall community
Have you used CIRA DNS Firewall before?
Yes

17 out of 18 Total Reviews for CIRA DNS Firewall

4.8 out of 5
The next elements are filters and will change the displayed results once they are selected.
Search reviews
Popular Mentions
The next elements are radio elements and sort the displayed results by the item selected and will update the results displayed.
Hide FiltersMore Filters
The next elements are filters and will change the displayed results once they are selected.
The next elements are filters and will change the displayed results once they are selected.

Overall Review Sentiment for CIRA DNS FirewallQuestion

Time to Implement
<1 day
>12 months
Return on Investment
<6 months
48+ months
Ease of Setup
0 (Difficult)
10 (Easy)
Log In
Want to see more insights from verified reviewers?
Log in to view review sentiment.
G2 reviews are authentic and verified.
Verified User in Information Technology and Services
AI
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
(Original )Information
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

The firewall is easy to configure and has an option to temporarily disable in order to test sites. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

Using the advertising block feature can mean email links do not work. You then have to figure out what the link is and add it as an allowed site. Minor in the overall scheme of things. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering CIRA DNS Firewall:

This is a great option to limit traffic to your router / firewall. Great first gate utility. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

Blocking some unwanted spawned browser pages. Less adverts overall. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Jaymon L.
JL
Director, IT Services
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
(Original )Information
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

It adds another layer of content and security control. Redundancy alone would be worth the price, but it also augments our other security tools. It is super simple to setup. Policies can be broad or granular as you needed. It catches malware payloads that have not yet been detected by other vendors.

I love tools that are simple, effective, and affordable. CIRA's D-Zone Firewall checks all 3 boxes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

I do not dislike anything. It seems like I need to add more letters to meet some kind of minimum. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

Ransomeware and phishing payloads sent via email make up a significant majority of threat vectors. D-Zone Firewall gives us another method of blocking credential grabbing destinations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Primary/Secondary Education
AP
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
(Original )Information
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

It's super easy to setup and manage. and it's nice peace of mind knowing that there is an additional scan happening above our corporate firewalls

Thanks for adding the HTTPS blocks in the reporting. Our counts went way up after that was added. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

reporting aspects good be better, but what is there now works ok.

Would be great to see the IP associated with the blocks/alerts

There are some false hits, like at one point 'reddit.com', but we can manually whitelist them Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering CIRA DNS Firewall:

use it :) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

nothing really noted to date but it's great to see it blocking stuff that goes back our firewall Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

MT
Senior Information Security Analyst
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

Simple set up and good security with no false positives so far. No need for any on prem systems and very quick to get it going. No real administration is required once it's set up. The daily reports include a csv so that you don't miss any activity that happens while away for the weekend for instance. The price is great particularly for cash strapped startups. The people at CIRA are very flexible on terms and provide excellent support and training. Multiple profiles available, content filtering. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

No reporting (with the exception of daily reports) or view of history. A report of blocks for a period whether it's a week or a month would help to show management what's happening within the organization and that we're getting value for this service. Even if it was just a csv. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering CIRA DNS Firewall:

It's a great way to add a layer of security and save budget for other security solutions. Having a log collector for your internal DNS will allow you to identify which systems attempted to go to malicious sites by search for URLs indicated on the DNS firewall console or in the daily reports. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

We've been building our security from the ground up and had no DNS security or visibility into whether or not any of our systems were trying to access C2s. Seeing C2 traffic would have indicated that we'd need to hunt internally for compromised systems. I've also realized that this is a simple, inexpensive and effective layer of security that will protect the entire company at this layer. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Higher Education
AH
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

Dashboard is simple to navigate and quick to load Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

More details on the DNS request in the logs would help locate potential issues. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

We have 3rd party email and Exchange Online protection, plus EDR on endpoints. Even this overlap of security does not stop or detect all issues. The DNS firewall has been able to catch some campaigns specifically targeted to Canadian higher ed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Higher Education
AH
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

Ease of setup and low administrative burden but provides an additional layer of security, especially for our wireless network. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

CIRA d-Zone firewall is not a feature-rich program. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

Our wireless network is open to our student's unmanaged devices. CIRA d-Zone provides the ability to block C2C bot access and malicious URL access that our local firewalls and various other threat lists may not detect. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Government Administration
AG
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

It is straightforward to set up and manage. We use it as another security layer. A few times a month, it catches something our other systems missed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

I think it needs to bteer advertising and more exposure. Very few people I speak with have ever heard of it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

Provided excellent backup for our existing security systems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

DP
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

The product is so easy to implement, and manage. Zero maintenance required. Very low number of false positives.

Ability to customize profiles for various networks that we manage. We can Create filtering profiles for Students and faculty that are less restrictive than we might have for administrative staff. Global protection across all of our campus ensuring that all systems are protected against malware and phishing.

Other products like the DNS filtering that can be implemented on our firewall break on SSL connections causing certificate errors without installing a certificate on the client machines. This solution works very well in a BYOD environment where it becomes more difficult to trust vendor certificates globally. DNS Firewall Instantly blocks access from infected systems to their C2 servers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

I wold love to see a tool set developed to correlate blocks against logged DNS queries on our windows and bind DNS servers.

Quick start guides should include documentation for forwarding bind servers to CIRA D-Zone DNS Firewall servers.

We would really appreciate a self service URL for end users to submit what they consider to be false positives. Perhaps this could be done via a button on the block page.

I wold also like a bit more information displayed on the block paged such as the URL and IP that were blocked although I understand that this could be challenging due to the nature of the product, and being that the client hitting the blocked page are different from the server doing the recursive lookup. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering CIRA DNS Firewall:

Communication is key. Sell the product as protection rather than blocking. This will aid in user acceptance.

At a minimum enable Malware protection and the available threat feeds. This provides a last line of defense for your systems and instantly neuters many malware etc from contacting their command and control servers.

Provide a contact information on your custom block page to allow users to self report if they see continuous blocked connections.

Branding, of block pages is important. Include screenshots in your initial communications and documentation so users will know what to expect. It is also important that end users know that blocked pages are legitimate.

Try providing information to your user community about CIRA Canadian Shield as an offering that will allow them to protect their homes and families. We have found that this is an additional benefit now that much of our user base is working from home due to the covid-19 pandemic. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

The primary purpose of using this service for us is to block phishing and malware. We are a university so in many ways blocking of access to internet sites is not something that received warmly. However protecting our users is required. This product allows us to implement a very non-intrusive protection that does a great job. Even systems that may have a malware installed are no longer able to call home to a C2 server. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ian T.
IT
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

Easy to use interface, cost effective and robust detection. Makes it easy to automatically add a blocking control that's based on a threat feed and also manually block sites that may be reported as malicious. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

I found the interface a little confusing at first. Once I got the hang of it it was easy, but I wish there were faster ways to do common tasks like manually block a site. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering CIRA DNS Firewall:

Like most security tools, this application fills a specific need, which it does very well. However, it's a specific tool and not a suite of products. You need to think about this tool as part of an overall strategy of controls. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

In addition to the automated blocking of known malware sites, we also use this as part of phishing response to help mitigate the impact of users clicking a phishing link. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

RL
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
Business partner of the seller or seller's competitor, not included in G2 scores.
What do you like best about CIRA DNS Firewall?

The network I manage has over 1200 endpoints. Primarily k12 teachers, students and public libraries. This service has identified 10's of thousands of bots and malicious websites that would have gone unnoticed by the sector. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about CIRA DNS Firewall?

If a school division is using an additional layer of content filtering, it is also a cloud service and it also requires DNS forwarding so the D-Zone service cannot be used as well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering CIRA DNS Firewall:

Highly recommend this product to ALL education institutions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is CIRA DNS Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?

There is a wide range of technical expertise in the sector. This greatly minimizes impacts to their networks. We have had zero ransomeware attacks since implementing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.