Part 3 of 5: Name Collisions, Why Every Enterprise Should Care

• By • Security

Do you recall when you were a kid and you experienced for the first time an unnatural event where some other kid “stole” your name and their parents were now calling their child by your name, causing much confusion for all on the playground? And how this all made things even more complicated – or at least unnecessarily complex when you and that kid shared a classroom and teacher, or street, or coach and team, and just perhaps that kid even had the same surname as you, amplifying the issue! What you were experiencing was a naming collision (in meatspace).

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Part 2 of 5: Internet Infrastructure: Stability at the Core, Innovation at the Edge

• By • Security

For nearly all communications on today’s internet, domain names play a crucial role in providing stable navigation anchors for accessing information in a predictable and safe manner, irrespective of where you’re located or the type of device or network connection you’re using. The underpinnings of this access are made possible by the Domain Name System (DNS), a behind the scenes system that maps human-readable mnemonic names (e.g.,www.Verisign.com) to machine-usable internet addresses (e.g., 69.58.187.40). The DNS is on the cusp of expanding profoundly in places where it’s otherwise been stable for decades and absent some explicit action may do so in a very dangerous manner.

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Part 1 of 5: Introduction: New gTLD Security and Stability Considerations

• By • Security

Verisign recently published a technical report on new generic top-level domain (gTLD) security and stability considerations. The initial objective of the report was to assess for Verisign’s senior management our own operational preparedness for new gTLDs, as both a Registry Service Provider for approximately 200 strings, as well as a direct applicant for 14 new gTLDs (including 12 internationalized domain name (IDN) transliterations of .com and .net). The goal was to help ensure our teams, infrastructure and processes are prepared for the pilot and general pre-delegation testing (PDT) exercises, various bits of which are underway, and the subsequent production delegations and launch of new gTLDs shortly thereafter.

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Cloud-Based DDoS Protection and Managed DNS Services Helping to Increase Operational Efficiency and Thwart Large Attacks

• By • DDoS Protection, Managed DNS, Security

As businesses continue to move critical operations online, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are increasing in frequency, sophistication and range of targets. In a 2011 Verisign study, 63 percent of respondents reported experiencing at least one attack that year, while 51 percent reported revenue loss as a result of downtime from the attack. Those numbers are undoubtedly higher today as the size, frequency and complexity of DDoS attacks continue to grow. Mitigation against these types of attacks is challenging and generally requires layered solutions across data centers and the cloud management. The success of these attacks and their ability to damage a company’s infrastructure, revenue and reputation is indicative that many IT managers still haven’t found the right protection formula to proactively mitigate them.

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Research Grants for Building Virtual Neighborhoods

• By • Security

One of the highlights of my first seven months at Verisign was attending the annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum(IGF) in Nairobi, Kenya last September. I had the pleasure of serving with industry, policy and technical leaders from around the world on several panels concerned with how to manage the internet as a shared and connected global resource. It was my first trip to Africa, and similar to my experience at each of the other new continents I’ve visited over the course of my career, what once seemed so far away became much closer to home – especially as I sat in the conference room and tweeted and emailed over the wireless network!

Attending IGF was a strong reminder that the world has become so much more connected, with internet access a huge enabler of the global economy. People are learning, companies are forming, and society is changing in new ways as a result of an interconnectedness that puts Kenya and every other country in the same, virtual neighborhood.

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