DNSSEC

Experts warn the controversial anti-copyright bill, SOPA, would undermine efforts to bolster internet security through the implementation of DNSSEC.

Proper DNS management by organizations is critical to protecting against threats and staying online during the busy holiday months.

Internet infrastructure services provider VeriSign was selected to operate the nation's domain name registry for .gov, the U.S. General Services Administration announced on Thursday. VeriSign will provide domain name registration services to federal, state and local governments operating sites under the .gov and fed.us domain names, according to a news release. In addition, VeriSign will support the implementation of DNSSEC, a set of security extensions that provide authentication of DNS data and prevent against attacks such as cache poisoning, on .gov and fed.us. The majority of government sites use .gov domain names while fed.us is used by a number of agencies. - AM

Despite a recent upswing in the adoption of DNSSEC, the actual number of "zones" that have been signed for the protocol is still low, making most organizations vulnerable, according to a new survey.

DNSSEC, a set of security extensions that provide authentication of DNS data and prevent against attacks such as cache poisoning, has been enabled at the root zone — a major step toward widespread adoption of the technology, VeriSign has announced.DNSSEC uses digital, cryptographic signatures to protect against forged DNS data and ensures that the server to which a user believes they are connecting is the correct one.The root zone, comprised of 13 root servers, is the top zone on the DNS hierarchy and lists the names and IP addresses of the authoritative DNS servers for all top-level domains, such as .com, .org and .gov. — DK

Mark Weatherford, California's CISO, transformed the government into an enterprise organization, Illena Armstrong reports.