.org made secure with DNSSEC

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 04 June 2009 01:50

IT Industry - Strategy

Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC) have been applied to the .org top level domain making it the largest domain registry to implement the security measure.

With DNSSEC, Internet users know that their Internet-based communications such as web site visits and email correspondence actually connect to the parties they intend to reach. DNSSEC thwarts attacks such as pharming, cache poisoning, and DNS redirection that have been used to commit fraud, distribute malware, or steal personal or confidential information.

According to Alexa Raad, CEO of the Public Interest Registry (PIR) which manages .org, implementing DNSSEC is a fundamental step in the upgrade of Internet security and stability. "With continuing growth of the Internet and the increasing number of applications depending on the DNS, this is a critical step in the evolution of the Internet. Pioneering technologies which are in the public interest, such as DNSSEC, are core to .org's mission."

DNSSEC would have protected the Internet against the much publicised cache poisoning vulnerability discovered last year by Dan Kaminsky that precipitated a global scramble to patch affected software an protect vulnerable name.

Implementation of DNSSEC on .org follows the PIR's proposal to implement DNSSEC within the .org zone being unanimously approved by the board of ICANN in June 2008 after a review by ICANN's Security and Stability Committee. As the first open generic top level domain authorised to implement DNSSEC, .org launched the DNSSEC Industry Coalition in August 2008 to execute an industry wide education and adoption plan within the Internet infrastructure community.

PIR says it will take a phased approach to full production readiness with DNSSEC for end users. "The registry will be in a DNSSEC quiet period to manually test the signed zone to mitigate any risks to the larger .org community."

The Public Interest Registry, was founded by the Internet Society in 2002. The .org domain is the Internet's third largest 'generic' or non-country specific top-level domain with more than seven million domain names registered worldwide.