Stumbled on a simple DNS filter that stopped 90% of my phishing emails

I run a small electrical shop, just me and two guys, and we handle our own IT. For months I was getting sketchy emails pretending to be from supply houses or utility companies. I tried training the crew to spot them but my older guy still clicks stuff he shouldnt. Last week I set up a free DNS filter on our router called Quad9, just changed the DNS servers to 9.9.9.9. It blocks known malicious domains before they even load. In 5 days my spam folder went from like 30 phishing attempts a day to maybe 2 or 3. I was shocked it was that easy. Anyone else use a DNS level filter instead of messing with email rules?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannah_perry14d ago

Wait, Quad9 is actually that effective? I've heard of DNS filtering but I figured it was just some techie hype and wouldn't really stop much. That's wild that you saw such a huge drop in just a few days, honestly I'm kind of embarrassed I didn't try this sooner. I'm always paranoid about clicking bad links but I never thought a simple DNS change could block them before they even reached my inbox. I might actually do this on my home router tonight because I'm sick of those fake delivery notifications. That's way easier than trying to teach my dad not to click on everything that says "your package is delayed.

claire_hart5314d ago

Did you have to tweak anything else to make it work, or just the DNS change?

jasonf1713d ago

Hannah, did you check if your ISP is one of the ones that blocks or ignores third-party DNS requests?