Verisign Security Blog

On October 20th, ICANN and Verisign renewed the agreement under which Verisign will continue to act as Root Zone Maintainer for the Domain Name System (DNS) for another 8-year term. The Root Zone sits atop the hierarchical architecture of the DNS and is essential to virtually all internet navigation, acting as the dynamic, cryptographically secure, […]

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On October 20th, ICANN and Verisign renewed the agreement under which Verisign will continue to act as Root Zone Maintainer for the Domain Name System (DNS) for another 8-year term. The Root Zone sits atop the hierarchical architecture of the DNS and is essential to virtually all internet navigation, acting as the dynamic, cryptographically secure, […]

The post Verisign and ICANN Renew Root Zone Maintainer Service Agreement appeared first on Verisign Blog.

Every day, there are tens of thousands of domain names registered across the globe – often as a key first step in creating a unique online presence. Making that experience possible for Verisign-operated top-level domains (TLDs) like .com and .net is a powerful and flexible technology platform first introduced 25 years ago. Thanks to the […]

The post The Verisign Shared Registration System: A 25-Year Retrospective appeared first on Verisign Blog.

The quantum computing era is coming, and it will change everything about how the world connects online. While quantum computing will yield tremendous benefits, it will also create new risks, so it’s essential that we prepare our critical internet infrastructure for what’s to come. That’s why we’re so pleased to share our latest efforts in […]

The post Verisign Provides Open Source Implementation of Merkle Tree Ladder Mode appeared first on Verisign Blog.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month reminds us how the wide range of perspectives and experiences among our employees makes us stronger both as a company and as a steward of the internet. In honor of this month, we are proud to recognize the stories of three of our Hispanic employees, and the positive impact they […]

The post Verisign Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month appeared first on Verisign Blog.

As part of Verisign’s ongoing effort to make global internet infrastructure more secure, stable, and resilient, we will soon make an important technology update to how we protect the top-level domains (TLDs) we operate. The vast majority of internet users won’t notice any difference, but the update will support enhanced security for several Verisign-operated TLDs […]

The post Verisign Will Help Strengthen Security with DNSSEC Algorithm Update appeared first on Verisign Blog.

In 2021, we discussed a potential future shift from established public-key algorithms to so-called “post-quantum” algorithms, which may help protect sensitive information after the advent of quantum computers. We also shared some of our initial research on how to apply these algorithms to the Domain Name System Security Extensions, or DNSSEC. In the time since […]

The post Next Steps in Preparing for Post-Quantum DNSSEC appeared first on Verisign Blog.

This blog was co-authored by Verisign Distinguished Engineer Mike Hollyman and Verisign Director – Engineering Hasan Siddique. It is based on a lightning talk they gave at NANOG 87 in February 2023, the slides from which are available on the NANOG website. At Verisign, we believe that continuous improvements to the safety and security of […]

The post Building a More Secure Routing System: Verisign’s Path to RPKI appeared first on Verisign Blog.

For Murray Green, working for a company that is a steward of critical internet infrastructure is a mission that he can get behind. Green, a senior engineering manager at Verisign, is a U.S. Army veteran who served during Operation Desert Storm and sees stewardship as a lifelong mission. In both roles, he has stayed focused […]

The post Verisign Honors Vets in Technology For Military Appreciation Month appeared first on Verisign Blog.

The Domain Name System (DNS) root zone will soon be getting a new record type, called ZONEMD, to further ensure the security, stability, and resiliency of the global DNS in the face of emerging new approaches to DNS operation. While this change will be unnoticeable for the vast majority of DNS operators (such as registrars, […]

The post Adding ZONEMD Protections to the Root Zone appeared first on Verisign Blog.

Over the past several years, domain name queries – a critical element of internet communication – have quietly become more secure, thanks, in large part, to a little-known set of technologies that are having a global impact. Verisign CTO Dr. Burt Kaliski covered these in a recent Internet Protocol Journal article, and I’m excited to […]

The post Minimized DNS Resolution: Into the Penumbra appeared first on Verisign Blog.

Every few months, an important ceremony takes place. It’s not splashed all over the news, and it’s not attended by global dignitaries. It goes unnoticed by many, but its effects are felt across the globe. This ceremony helps make the internet more secure for billions of people. This unique ceremony began in 2010 when Verisign, […]

The post Verisign’s Role in Securing the DNS Through Key Signing Ceremonies appeared first on Verisign Blog.

As we passed five years since the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition took place, my co-authors and I paused to look back on this pivotal moment; to take stock of what we’ve learned and to re-examine some of the key events leading up to the transition and how careful planning ensured a successful transfer of […]

The post ICANN’s Accountability and Transparency – a Retrospective on the IANA Transition appeared first on Verisign Blog.

Today, as the world celebrates International Women in Engineering Day, we recognize and honor women engineers at Verisign, whose own stories have helped shape dreams and encouraged young women and girls to take up engineering careers. Here are three of their stories: Shama Khakurel, Senior Software Engineer When Shama Khakurel was in high school, she […]

The post Celebrating Women Engineers Today and Every Day at Verisign appeared first on Verisign Blog.

This blog was also published by APNIC. With so much traffic on the global internet day after day, it’s not always easy to spot the occasional irregularity. After all, there are numerous layers of complexity that go into the serving of webpages, with multiple companies, agencies and organizations each playing a role. That’s why when […]

The post More Mysterious DNS Root Query Traffic from a Large Cloud/DNS Operator appeared first on Verisign Blog.

This article is based on a paper originally published as part of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace’s Cyberstability Paper Series, “New Conditions and Constellations in Cyber,” on Dec. 9, 2021. The Domain Name System has provided the fundamental service of mapping internet names to addresses from almost the earliest days of the […]

The post Routing Without Rumor: Securing the Internet’s Routing System appeared first on Verisign Blog.

When an outage affects a component of the internet infrastructure, there can often be downstream ripple effects affecting other components or services, either directly or indirectly. We would like to share our observations of this impact in the case of two recent such outages, measured at various levels of the DNS hierarchy, and discuss the […]

The post Observations on Resolver Behavior During DNS Outages appeared first on Verisign Blog.

For over a decade, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and its multi-stakeholder community have engaged in an extended dialogue on the topic of DNS abuse, and the need to define, measure and mitigate DNS-related security threats. With increasing global reliance on the internet and DNS for communication, connectivity and commerce, the […]

The post Ongoing Community Work to Mitigate Domain Name System Security Threats appeared first on Verisign Blog.

This is the final in a multi-part series on cryptography and the Domain Name System (DNS). In previous posts in this series, I’ve discussed a number of applications of cryptography to the DNS, many of them related to the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). In this final blog post, I’ll turn attention to another […]

The post Information Protection for the Domain Name System: Encryption and Minimization appeared first on Verisign Blog.

This is the fifth in a multi-part series on cryptography and the Domain Name System (DNS). In my last article, I described efforts underway to standardize new cryptographic algorithms that are designed to be less vulnerable to potential future advances in quantum computing. I also reviewed operational challenges to be considered when adding new algorithms […]

The post Securing the DNS in a Post-Quantum World: Hash-Based Signatures and Synthesized Zone Signing Keys appeared first on Verisign Blog.