DNS - .ORG, The Public Interest Registry to Soon Complete Final step of DNSSEC Deployment

 .ORG, the Public Interest Registry (PIR), has announced plans to complete the final step to realizing full DNSSEC deployment in the .ORG registry by accepting second level signed .ORG zones beginning in June of 2010.  

 

The organization empowers the global community to use the Internet effectively and, concurrently, takes a leadership position among Internet stakeholders on policy and related issues

 

The completion of the final steps of deployment is expected to position .ORG as the first generic top-level domain (TLD) to offer full DNSSEC deployment. Alexa Raad, CEO at PIR, said that this also positions .ORG registrants to be amongst the first to safeguard their users from escalating security threats, especially as Internet usage continues to grow exponentially.

 

Now, all the registrars can plan to offer an additional security service to their customers. DNSSEC offers the ability to thwart the increasing predominance of attacks like pharming, cache poisoning, and DNS redirection that have been used to commit fraud, distribute malware, and/or identity theft. PIR officials said that DNSSEC protects Internet resolvers -- clients -- from forged DNS data, such as that created by DNS cache poisoning.   

 

“This announcement coupled with recent ones by Comcast (News - Alert), various ccTLDs and even ICANN, is an important signal not only for application providers, ISPs, and telcos, but also for registrars to begin planning for their implementation now, to address the need for enhanced security for their customers,” Raad said.

 

The introduction of signed delegations with the technical support of Afilias is said to be the final step in PIR’s phased approach to fully deploying DNSSEC, within the .ORG zone.

 

PIR officials said that a “friends and family” testing phase, started in June of 2008 has enabled PIR to comprehensively test and address operational and deployment issues related to zone management, key distribution and rollover. In addition, the testing phase has also enabled PIR to assist registrars in the development and deployment of the service.

 

Rod Beckstrom, president and chief executive officer at ICANN, said that the opening up general registration of signed zones in .ORG is a major step forward.

 

The interested registrars need to pass a mandatory DNSSEC Certification Test.