Cloudflare, an internet security provider, has landed a $7.2 million project from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to provide registry and authoritative DNS services to the .gov top level domain (TLD).
What's in the Deal?
The contract calls for the San Francisco-based Cloudflare to provide managed name servers for the .gov zone and authoritative DNS hosting for .gov domain names. The .gov TLD registry and DNS services are available to all bona fide U.S.-based government organizations. CISA makes .gov domains available at no cost to government organizations.
Under terms of the deal, Cloudflare’s responsibilities will align with CISA’s goals:
- Reduce the attack surface of .gov-related infrastructure and government organizations.
- Automate sensitive portions of DNS security management, setting DNS records that make it hard to successfully impersonate the government in email by default, and offering new features.
- Gain visibility to better detect and prevent certain DNS ecosystem issues instead of reacting to them.
“The Internet has made the United States government more accessible for constituents than ever before, whether they're applying for a passport, learning health and safety recommendations for their communities, or reaching out to a representative,” said Matthew Prince, Cloudflare chief executive and co-founder. “Having a reliable and secure DNS for government agencies is critical to instill trust in all .gov activity and working with us to achieve this is a testament to the reliability and security of the Cloudflare network.”
DNS Services at Center of Work
CISA selected Cloudflare to provide registry and DNS services to meet the need for highly available DNS services that enhance resilience and simplify security operations for .gov domain users.
Cloudflare recently achieved FedRAMP moderate authorization and is available on the FedRAMP marketplace. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.
Cloudflare provides security, performance, and reliability services through its global network to over 40 United States Federal Government agencies.
In late December,2022, Cloudflare launched its Project Safekeeping program to provide zero trust security solutions free of charge to small and medium-sized critical infrastructure organizations. The initiative is designed to protect under-resourced critical infrastructure organizations against cyberattacks and data breaches and provides eligible critical infrastructure organizations with free access to Cloudflare’s zero trust security services and application security products.
Project Safekeeping joins Cloudflare’s Athenian Project, which provides services for free to state, county, and local officials administering elections. Cloudflare in December 2022 began offering its Cloudflare One zero trust security tools for free to at-risk public interest groups as part of the company’s Project Galileo initiative.
In 2021, CISA began utilizing Cloudflare to deliver a protective DNS resolver solution for all Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies.
