ISC Spins Off Its Security Business Unit

Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) announces that it has sold its security-related assets to Farsight Security, Inc. (“Farsight”), a new company started by ISC founder, Paul Vixie. The DNSDB and SIE services developed by ISC over the past five years will now be provided by Farsight.

“Paul Vixie has been the driving force in Internet security innovation at ISC for many years,” said Kannan Ayyar, President of Internet Systems Consortium. “We are pleased that he will be taking these technologies forward and providing ongoing leadership in the security space. We look forward to his continued innovation there. Paul Vixie has been part of ISC for 18 years; with this new venture he has ended all of his involvement with ISC. We are grateful for his many contributions and share his excitement about Farsight.”

This is the second time this year that ISC has divested certain assets to a commercial for-profit entity. ISC is doing this to increase clarity and focus for its non-profit Internet mission, which includes running F-Root, providing hosting and Internet services for non-profits, researching and developing new ideas for the Internet, and of course providing free world-class nameserver and DHCP software for the benefit of the Internet.

In April of this year, ISC launched DNSco (http://dns-co.com), a wholly-owned subsidiary delivering a full suite of commercial services for BIND and ISC DHCP. Farsight, unlike DNSco, is a privately held company that is independent of ISC.

“Farsight security technologies and service delivery capabilities are the result of years of research at ISC,” said Paul Vixie. “During that time we iterated on a range of business models and technology prototypes yielding best-in-class Internet security solutions that will help make the Internet a safer place.”

About ISC

Internet Systems Consortium is a non-profit 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation widely known for world-class Internet software engineering and network operations. ISC produces only open-source software with emphasis on Internet core technology, of which BIND and ISC DHCP are the two best-known examples. ISC’s Managed Open Source process ensures the quality of this software while keeping it open and available.

ISC operates high-reliability global networks of DNS root servers (F-root) and authoritative DNS servers (SNS@ISC) both for non-profit and for commercial enterprises. ISC is also very involved in ongoing Internet protocol and standards development, particularly in the areas of DNSSEC and IPv6. ISC is supported by donations from generous sponsors, by program membership fees, and by increasing revenues from for-profit subsidiaries. For program or donation information, please visit our website at https://isc.org.

About Farsight Security, Inc.

Farsight is a privately held Delaware corporation exclusively focused on the development of leading edge security solutions for ISPs, network and system security solution providers, governments, and medium to large commercial companies. Leveraging its superior telemetry data collection and processing capabilities, Farsight provides its clients with cloud-based, real-time network observability and reporting solutions.

Like ISC before it, Farsight is committed to sharing its security-related telemetry data with security industry partners and academic researchers at nominal, non-discriminatory subscription rates. In support of its mission as a clearing house for such data, Farsight invites network operators and commercial clients to provide additional telemetry data, which will increase the volume, quality and accuracy of its data provision services thus improving the overall safety of the Internet as a viable commercial marketplace.

Further information about it can be found at https://www.farsightsecurity.com.