Whalebone

Market position

Whalebone describes itself as a globally recognized market leader with the highest number of telco mass-market cybersecurity deployments and as the official provider of secure DNS resolution for the European Union, with more than 300 telecom providers using its services and a stated mission to protect one billion people.

Products require no installation or updates and run on the network itself, extending coverage to IoT and other devices that cannot host security agents; the company claims roughly ten times higher adoption than installed security software. Other stated differentiators are real-time threat intelligence rather than update-dependent databases, user-facing touchpoints intended to make protection visible and reduce churn, and its role as leader of the EU-selected DNS4EU consortium.

Technology

The core technology is DNS-layer filtering and threat resolution performed on the operator or enterprise network, requiring no client installation or updates. Threat intelligence is applied in real time rather than through scheduled database updates, and intervenes at multiple stages of a malware lifecycle: before download, before a malicious domain is reached, and when already-resident malware attempts to contact command-and-control infrastructure. Additional layers cover identity protection for users' sensitive data and fraud call protection. Network administrators receive threat analyses and reports, while end users receive alerts. The company's public GitHub organization hosts DNS4EU public resolver documentation and configuration files plus DNS-related tooling such as passive DNS and dnstap forks, Helm charts and a SAML SSO service.

Go-to-market

Sales run through communication service providers and enterprise channels, with a direct sales organization structured by region under vice presidents for North America, Latin America, Europe, Nordics/Central Asia/Caucasus/Ukraine, Middle East and Africa, South Asia and Asia-Pacific. Operator partnerships are positioned as white-label consumer security services carrying the operator's brand. The company publishes threat research and launch announcements on its blog and lists sales contact via sales@whalebone.io.

Telecom operators, internet service providers, enterprises, public institutions and governments; through those channels, consumer, business and government end users. Named customers and partners include A1 (Austria and four further markets), O2 Czech Republic, Tele2 Latvia, MTN Ghana, Cellcard (Cambodia), Panasonic Slovakia and DK Wireless (South Africa).

Geography

Headquartered in Brno, Czech Republic, with a presence at the A1 Start Up Campus in Vienna since 2017 and regional leadership covering Europe, the Nordics, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Ukraine, North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, South Asia and Asia-Pacific. Customer deployments span Austria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia, Ghana, Cambodia and South Africa.

History

Founded in 2016 in Brno, Czech Republic, Whalebone joined the A1 Start Up Campus in Vienna in 2017 and later deepened its partnership with A1, whose A1 Net Protect service is built on Whalebone's DNS-based security and sold in five countries across the A1 ecosystem. O2 in the Czech Republic is also cited as a customer. The company was subsequently selected to lead the European Commission's DNS4EU consortium as developer and operator of the EU's official DNS resolver, and reports over 300 telecom providers using its services.