The European Commission plans to onboard 100 million people to a new EU-based DNS internet infrastructure. The DNS4EU will be developed by an international consortium led by Czech company Whalebone.

The DNS4EU project supports the EU vision to strengthen the EU’s digital independence and serve as an alternative to the current public DNS offered by US-based tech giants. The plan is to combine the current telecommunications operator and internet service provider infrastructure with new publicly accessible DNS resolvers. It will offer both free DNS service to the citizens and institutions as well as enhanced security premium services.

Decentralized DNS system

The key aim is to solve the problem of DNS centralization in the hands of a few firms, which makes address translation vulnerable if one of these operators runs into trouble. Therefore the project's outcome is a powerful recursive DNS that will serve as an “address book of the internet” enabling browsing web via domain names instead of strings of numbers (IP addresses).  

The project is part of the EU backbone networks for the so-called European Cloud Federation which can be seen as an effort to have a widely available European alternative to the American providers. The European Commission will allocate 80 million EUR for this activity –⁠ 65 million EU for connecting clouds and 14 million EUR for DNS4EU.  

Protecting 100 milion users from cyberthreats

The project is coordinated by Whalebone, a Czech cybersecurity and digital life protection company. “Our goal is to protect 100 million people thanks to the DNS4EU. To reach this milestone, we need to be working together with mobile and internet service companies across the continent. Therefore we will not only introduce new public infrastructure but also include the operators in the architecture,” Whalebone’s CEO Richard Malovic explains.

‍AI Center FEE CTU participates as the third largest consortium member under the leadership of Sebastián García. "We are honored to be part of such an important effort to protect the privacy and security of EU citizens. Our team will contribute to the experienced consortium with expertise in security and AI to protect users from malware, DNS abuse, phishing, and other threats. Helping secure 100 million internet users makes us truly happy, although it comes with great responsibility," García commented.

13 consortium members based in 10 EU countries

For the solution to be accessible to everyone, the European Commission chose a team of diverse members with long experience in the field. “Our consortium includes private companies, research institutions, an NGO, a university, public institutions, multiple sectoral and national Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), and National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) – all focused on cybersecurity and internet infrastructure. Thanks to this unique mix, we can provide a truly sustainable, independent, and stable solution,” follows coordinator of the proposal Petr Soukeník from Whalebone.

All members of the consortium are: Whalebone (CZ), AI Center FEE CTU (CZ), developer and operator of national e-infrastructure for science, research, development and education CESNET (CZ), the national internet domain administrator CZ.NIC (CZ), Abi Lab (CERTFin IT), Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança ( CERT.PT), deSec (DE),  Ministry of Electronic Governance (BG), NASK (CERT Polska), National Cyber Security Directorate (RO), F-Secure (FI), Sztaki (Hun-CERT) and Time.lex (BE). 

Virtual press conference

Press conference on this topic will took place on January 10 at 10:00 CET. You can watch the recording below. If you are interested, we can stillarrange an individual interview with the consortium leaders.