DNSCrypt is a network protocol that authenticates and encrypts DNS traffic between users and recursive name servers, preventing eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks while mitigating UDP-based amplification attacks. Originally designed by Frank Denis and Yecheng Fu, it has been adopted by major public DNS resolvers including OpenDNS, Yandex, CloudNS, AdGuard, and Quad9, with implementations available across multiple operating systems.