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A Balanced DNS Information Protection Strategy: Minimize at Root and TLD, Encrypt When Needed Elsewhere

• By • Security

Over the past several years, questions about how to protect information exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) have come to the forefront.

One of these questions was posed first to DNS resolver operators in the middle of the last decade, and is now being brought to authoritative name server operators: “to encrypt or not to encrypt?” It’s a question that Verisign has been considering for some time as part of our commitment to security, stability and resiliency of our DNS operations and the surrounding DNS ecosystem.

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Maximizing Qname Minimization: A New Chapter in DNS Protocol Evolution

• By • Security

Data privacy and security experts tell us that applying the “need to know” principle enhances privacy and security, because it reduces the amount of information potentially disclosed to a service provider — or to other parties — to the minimum the service provider requires to perform a service.  This principle is at the heart of qname minimization, a technique described in RFC 7816 that has now achieved significant adoption in the DNS.

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Chromium’s Impact on Root DNS Traffic

• By • Domain Names

This article originally appeared Aug. 21, 2020 on the APNIC blog.

Introduction

Chromium is an open-source software project that forms the foundation for Google’s Chrome web browser, as well as a number of other browser products, including Microsoft Edge, Opera, Amazon Silk, and Brave. Since Chrome’s introduction in 2008, Chromium-based browsers have steadily risen in popularity and today comprise approximately 70% of the market share.1

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DNS: An Essential Component of Cloud Computing

• By • Domain Names

The evolution of the internet is anchored in the phenomenon of new technologies replacing their older counterparts. But technology evolution can be just as much about building upon what is already in place, as it is about tearing down past innovations. Indeed, the emergence of cloud computing has been powered by extending an unlikely underlying component: the more than 30-year-old global Domain Name System (DNS).

The DNS has offered a level of utility and resiliency that has been virtually unmatched in its 30-plus years of existence. Not only is this resiliency important for the internet as a whole, it is particularly important for cloud computing. In addition to the DNS’s resiliency, cloud computing relies heavily on DNS capabilities such as naming schemes and lookup mechanisms for its flexibility, usability and functionality.

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Combatting Illegal Online Opioid Sales in the COVID-19 Era

• By • Domain Names

U.S. News & World Report’s June 23 article, “The Hidden Deaths of COVID-19”, details how the current novel coronavirus pandemic could cause a spike in opioid overdoses, by denying those most at risk access to support meetings or urgent medical care. It underscores that, even as we focus on mitigating this current pandemic, we cannot let up on efforts to combat the ongoing epidemic of opioid misuse and overdose.

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Verisign Expands MANRS Relationship to Strengthen Global Routing Security

• By • Security

Verisign has been involved with an initiative known as Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security, or MANRS, since its inception. MANRS, which is coordinated by the Internet Society, focuses on strengthening the security and resiliency of IP networks throughout the world by identifying and providing best practices for mitigating common routing security threats.

MANRS began as a collaboration among network operators and internet exchange providers, with Verisign formally becoming a participant in its Network Operator Program in 2017. Since then, with the help of Verisign and other MANRS participants, the initiative has grown to also include content delivery networks (CDN) and cloud providers.

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Recognizing Lessons Learned From the First DNSSEC Key Rollover, a Year Later

• By • Security

A year ago, under the leadership of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the internet naming community completed the first-ever rollover of the cryptographic key that plays a critical role in securing internet traffic worldwide. The ultimate success of that endeavor was due in large part to outreach efforts by ICANN and Verisign which, when coupled with the tireless efforts of the global internet measurement community, ensured that this significant event did not disrupt internet name resolution functions for billions of end users.  

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Unexpected Effects of the 2018 Root Zone KSK Rollover

• By • Domain Names

March 22, 2019 saw the completion of the final important step in the Key Signing Key (KSK) rollover – a process which began about a year and half ago. What may be less well known is that post rollover, and until just a couple days ago, Verisign was receiving a dramatically increasing number of root DNSKEY queries, to the tune of 75 times higher than previously observed, and accounting for ~7 percent of all transactions at the root servers we operate.

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Revisiting How Registrants Can Reduce the Threat of Domain Hijacking

• By • Domain Names, Security

Recent events1,2 have shown the threat of domain hijacking is very real; however, it is also largely preventable. As Verisign previously noted3, there are many security controls that registrants can utilize to help strengthen their security posture. Verisign would like to reiterate this advice within the context of the recent domain hijacking reports.

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