DNS Security

Failed Expectations: A Deep Dive Into the Internet’s 40 Years of Evolution

In a recent workshop, I attended, reflecting on the evolution of the Internet over the past 40 years, one of the takeaways for me is how we've managed to surprise ourselves in both the unanticipated successes we've encountered and in the instances of failure when technology has stubbornly resisted to be deployed despite our confident expectations to the contrary! What have we learned from these lessons about our inability to predict technology outcomes? more

DNS Abuse Definition: Attributes of Mitigation

A substantial amount of DNS community discussion on the topic of DNS Abuse is focused on defining what is or is not DNS Abuse. The definition adopted by ICANN contracted parties, as well as the DNS Abuse Institute, is straightforward: DNS Abuse is malware, botnets, pharming, phishing, and spam where it's a vehicle for the preceding harms. There is, of course, some fuzziness on the margins, where technical harms are also using content. more

DNS Resolution, Browsers & Hope For The Future

DNS is not something that most people think about when using the Internet. Neither should they have to: the DNS is just part of the infrastructure in the same way that IP addresses are. The only time a user ought to notice the DNS is when it breaks (and it should never break). If that's true, then we ought to expect any Internet client - including web browsers - to use the very same infrastructure as everything else and for the DNS resolution mechanisms to be the ones offered by the operating system. What makes browsers different? more

GSA Looking Into .gov Outages

"The General Services Administration is analyzing what caused an outage of .gov websites for a few hours Wednesday morning," reports Federal Times. Officials said the problem involved so-called DNSSEC cybersecurity measures that affected access to certain .gov sites, according to GSA spokeswoman Mafara Hobson. more

ISOC’s DNSSEC Deployment Map Available In Global Internet Maps (Interactive)

Internet Society's DNSSEC Deployment Maps are now available as part of a larger set of Global Internet Maps from its annual Global Internet Report. The map is based off of the 5 stages of DNSSEC deployment that the organization tracks as part of the weekly DNSSEC deployment maps generated. more

Beyond the Top Level: DNSSEC Deployment at ICANN 40

I recently wrote about the encouraging level of DNSSEC adoption among top-level domain name registries, and noted that adoption at the second level and in applications is an important next step for adding more security to the DNS. The root and approximately 20 percent of the top level domains are now signed; it is time for registrars and recursive DNS servers operated by the ISPs to occupy center stage. more

The Resolvers We Use

The Internet's Domain Name System is a modern day miracle. It may not represent the largest database that has ever been built, but nevertheless it's truly massive. And even if it's not the largest database that's ever been built, it's perhaps one of the more intensively used... Given the fragmentation of the IPv4 address space with the widespread use of various forms of address sharing, then it increasingly looks as if the DNS is the only remaining common glue that binds the Internet together as a single network. more

Ensuring Maximum Resilience to the DNS?

Yesterday CommunityDNS noticed a sudden, heavy spike in traffic through its Anycast node in Hong Kong. While comfortably processing queries at 863,000 queries per second for close to 2 hours the occurrence was undeniable. While we can't say the increase in traffic was specifically due to DDoS, its sudden increase is suspicious and reminds us that DDoS is still a popular tool used by the malicious community. more

2012 Global Phishing Trends: Uptime Down, Numbers Up

Despite security advances over the past year, including the increased deployment of DNSSEC, pirates continue to wreak havoc on the Internet. But before you decide that Internet security innovations are futile, consider this: online criminals are just like burglars in the physical world; they don't take new ways of blocking their best efforts lying down. They come up with new and, in some cases, stronger plans of attack. more

Google Notifying Half a Million Users Affected By DNSChanger

Google has announced that it has started undertaking an effort to notify roughly half a million people whose computers or home routers are infected with a well-publicized form of malware known as DNSChanger. "After successfully alerting a million users last summer to a different type of malware, we've replicated this method and have started showing warnings via a special message that will appear at the top of the Google search results page for users with affected devices." more

The DNS at the IGF

It's unclear what this means in the long run. Do bad actions and actors go undetected? Do we lose our visibility into network management? What is a "secure" network, and how do we secure it using traditional techniques of network perimeter traffic inspection when all the network traffic is opaque? If we can't see inside the DNS anymore, then how can we tell if (or when) the DNS has been captured by one or two digital behemoths? more

CircleID’s Top 10 Posts of 2008

Here is a list of the most viewed news and blog postings that were featured on CircleID in 2008... Best wishes for 2009 and Happy New Year from all of us here at CircleID. more

Is DNSSEC Worth the Effort?

A blog post has created some attention online through its extremely negative attitude to DNSSEC. Through the years, I have come in contact with many arguments against DNSSEC that suggest that anyone who is critical has not managed to or wanted to familiarize themselves with what DNSSEC is and does. We have received many questions concerning the article, so I feel it's appropriate to respond to the criticism. more

Call for Proposals: ICANN 64 DNSSEC Workshop in Kobe, Japan (March 2019)

Will you be at the ICANN 64 meeting in March 2019 in Kobe, Japan? If so (or if you can get to Kobe), would you be interested in speaking about any work you have done (or are doing) with DNSSEC, DANE or other DNS security and privacy technologies? If you are interested, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation before 07 February 2019. more

2008: A Historic Year for DNS

As we start the new year, it is worth noting some of the major events and news in 2008 that shaped the industry and fueled considerable discussions. Last year's occurrences made for a very historic year, bearing the seeds of future changes for the DNS and domain name industry. more