The Internet is set to get a whole lot safer, the security standard DNSSEC is set to be assigned to the Internet's 13 root servers from later today.. It makes the end of a long trail; DNSSEC has been some years in its implementation yet has still failed to penetrate the wider market, despite the efforts of IETF, the Internet registries and the US government. Naming registry ICANN has been working with Verisign and the US department of commerce for some time to make DNSSEC a more integrated part of the Internet infrastructure. ICANN's DNS director, Joe Abley, said that the rollout of DNSSEC to the root servers had been a long one. "We Started rolling it since January - it's a slow rollout,. We've taken 6 months to do this - it's not like in enterprises where you trial something and go live next week. The link for this article located at Network World is no longer available. . DNSSEC is increasingly essential to the backbone of the Internet, especially with its recent launch on the primary servers.. Dnssec, Root Servers, Internet Security, Networking Standards, Internet Protocols. . Alex
On Wednesday (5th May) the last of the 13 authoritative root servers for the domain name system switched over to the DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) security protocol. DNSSEC is intended to prevent DNS exploits such as cache poisoning. All 13 root servers are now serving a signed version of the root zone. However, it is not possible to validate these signatures at present as the public key remains undisclosed.. This precautionary measure is intended to ensure that for the time being it remains possible to switch back to an unsigned root zone, should the need arise. There have been no reports of any problems in the immediate aftermath of VeriSign's J root server starting to serve DNSSEC signatures. Experts at the 60th RIPE meeting in Prague were almost unanimous in predicting a glitch-free switchover, following the successful switchovers of the other 12 root servers in recent months. The only apocalyptic note was sounded by a countdown to the demise of the unsigned root zone. Yesterday's changeover does mean the .root zone is now dead. VeriSign, which operated the master server for the root zone, has for several years used a single entry under .root, that served the purpose of checking that the bulky root zone had been transferred. According to Jaap Akkerhuis, a DNS expert at nl.netLabs, the creation of the .root entry was prompted by a complete outage of the .com zone following a data transfer error. Rigid DNSSEC procedures render this trick for root servers operated by VeriSign and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) obsolete. The link for this article located at H Security is no longer available. . This precautionary measure is intended to ensure that for the time being it remains possible to swit. wednesday, authoritative, servers, domain, system. . Anthony Pell
A denial-of-service attack apparently overwhelmed two of the thirteen root domain name servers early Tuesday morning, according to data collected by Internet infrastructure service RIPE NCC. The attack caused the G and L servers to fail to respond to at least 90 percent of queries, according to the RIPE data. Two other root servers also appeared to have suffered from dropped traffic, and the Associated Press reported that a third server had been overwhelmed by the attack. . The link for this article located at SecurityFocus is no longer available. . A distributed denial-of-service assault overwhelms several primary servers, rendering them incapable of handling numerous incoming requests.. Denial Of Service Attack, Root Domain Name Servers, DNS Security. . Benjamin D. Thomas
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