DNS

A Logical Place to Start the IPv6 Transition

The transition to IPv6 is top of mind for most service providers. Even in places where there are still IPv4 addresses to be had surveys we've run suggest v6 is solidly on the priority list. That's not to say everyone has the same strategy. Depending where you are in the world transition options are different -- in places such as APAC where exhaustion is at hand one of the many NAT alternatives will likely be deployed since getting a significant allocation of addresses is not going to happen and other alternatives for obtaining addresses will prove expensive. more

A Look at the Rapid Evolution of the World’s DNS Infrastructure

A recent report by Pingdom looks at the booming growth of Internet's DNS infrastructure. From the article: "Five years ago there were 123 DNS root server sites (the "backend" of DNS) spread out on the Internet. Today there are more than twice as many, over 300. Five years ago, 46 countries had root servers. Today, 76 have them. In other words, not only has the number of root servers grown tremendously, but their geographical spread has increased as well. This is good news for the overall stability and performance of DNS worldwide." more

Leveraging DNS for Subscriber Loyalty

There has been a lot of talk about how the DNS can provide network-based security, and how DNS is in the best position to detect malware traffic before it does any harm. But what does this mean for end users? How does it make their online lives easier and more secure? DNS servers that are aware of sites that host malware, perform phishing activities (harvesting bank details, for instance) and other nefarious misbehaviors, can prevent end users from ever going to those sites. more

Counter-eCrime Operations Summit (APWG) In Prague Next Week

The sixth annual Counter-eCrime Operations Summit (CeCOS VI) will engage questions of operational challenges and the development of common resources for the first responders and forensic professionals who protect consumers and enterprises from the ecrime threat every day. This year's meeting will focus on the shifting nature of cybercrime and the attendant challenges of managing that dynamic threatscape. more

Why SOPA Defender Joins Internet Society as Regional Director

Internet Society recently announced the appointment of former chief technology officer of Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The decision has raised concerns within the Internet community as Paul Brigner had campaigned for SOPA while at MPAA as well as being on record opposing net neutrality while being an official at Verizon. more

Slowly Cracking the DNSSEC Code at ICANN 43

As regular readers know, ICANN holds lengthy, in-depth discussions devoted to DNSSEC at each of its three annual meetings. The half-day session held at ICANN 43 in Costa Rica last month was particularly interesting. What became clear is that the industry is quickly moving into the end-user adoption phase of global DNSSEC deployment. more

I Don’t Need a Signature to Know It’s Going to Be Bad…

There was a period of time not long ago in which signature-based threat detection was cutting-edge. Antivirus, intrusion detection systems (IDS), data leakage prevention (DLP), content filtering and even anomaly detection systems (ADS) all continue to rely heavily upon static signatures. In recent years vendors have shied away from discussing their dependence on such signatures -- instead extolling supplemental "non-signature-based" detection technologies. more

The Journey of IPv6 Implementation 9 Months Later

ICANN 43 in Costa Rica was in the heart of IPv6 implementation with everybody touching on how much it was needed as part of the internet ecosystem to fully utilize the ICANN expansion of the new gTLD namespace from 21 to the maximum number that will manage to get delegated at the beginning of 2013. more

ICANN Appoints IID’s Rod Rasmussen to Its Security and Stability Advisory Committee

ICANN has appointed IID President and CTO Rod Rasmussen to its Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC). An area that Rasmussen's work and recent SSAC reports have both covered in-depth is domain name hijacking. Recent hijackings against UFC.com and Coach.com, and similar past attacks against CheckFree, Comcast and Twitter have heightened awareness about the security dangers with the Internet's infrastructure. more

Close to 6 Million Domain Names Registered in Q4 2011, Total Passes 225 Million Worldwide

According to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from VeriSign, Inc., the fourth quarter of 2011 closed with a base of more than 225 million domain name registrations across all Top-Level Domains (TLDs) -- an increase of 5.9 million domain names, or 2.7 percent over the third quarter. Registrations have grown by more than 20.4 million, or 10 percent, since the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the report. more

Malware Increasingly Uses DNS As Command and Control Channel to Avoid Detection

Number of malware threats that receive instructions from attackers through DNS is expected to increase, and most companies are not currently scanning for such activity on their networks, security experts said at the RSA Conference 2012 on Tuesday. While most malware-generated traffic passing through most channels used for communicating with botnets (such as TCP, IRC, HTTP or Twitter feeds and Facebook walls) can be detected and blocked, it's not the case for DNS (Domain Name System) and attackers are taking advantage of that, said Ed Skoudis, founder of Counter Hack Challenges and SANS fellow. more

Schmidt: Handing over Control of Internet, DNS to the UN a Disaster, Will Divide the Internet

During the Mobile World Congress 2012, Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt, today warned against United Nations' treaty aimed at bringing more Internet regulation. "That would be a disaster... To some, the openness and interoperability is one of the greatest achievements of mankind in our lifetime. Do not give that up easily. You will regret it. You will hate it, because all of a sudden all that freedom, all that flexibility, you'll find it shipped away for one good reason after another." more

IPv6 Stat Leapfrogs Expectations and Illustrates Important Role Registrars Play in Uptake

Since 2005, Infoblox has commissioned a survey by The Measurement Factory, a research firm that specializes in performance testing and protocol compliance. The studies examine key aspects of the Internet's Domain Name infrastructure with results that uncover trends in DNS server configuration and deployed features. Some topics that have helped define the survey over the years have been arguably more leading edge (DNSSEC), while others are best described as quotidian (lame servers). more

Measuring Root Server Performance

Root name servers are a core service of the Internet. As such they receive a huge amount of queries and need to answer reliably with acceptable delay. The RIPE NCC is responsible for operating one of the 13 DNS root name servers K-root which responds to 10,000 - 15,000 queries per second. Most root servers are operated as a network of distributed "instances" using anycast. more

Google Public DNS Service Passes 70 Billion Requests Per Day, No Longer Experimental

Google reports that its "experimental" public DNS service launched in December of 2009 has now passed 70 billion requests a day and no longer considered experimental. From the announcement: "Google Public DNS has become particularly popular for our users internationally. Today, about 70 percent of its traffic comes from outside the U.S. We’ve maintained our strong presence in North America, South America and Europe, and beefed up our presence in Asia. We've also added entirely new access points to parts of the world where we previously didn't have Google Public DNS servers, including Australia, India, Japan and Nigeria." more