Afilias' James Galvin will be moderating a panel entitled: e-Crimes and Malicious Use in the DNS: Implications and Observations at the IGF USA conference to be held at the Georgetown Law Center.

This session covers some of very real time examples of the fight against DNS‐related abuse such as phishing, malware and fraudulent uses of domain names. The panel will also comment on the scope and growth expected in various kinds of fraud and abuse as the domain name space continues to grow exponentially.

• ‹ previous
• 72 of 74
• next ›

Afilias' James Galvin will be the main speaker at this Information Systems Security Association event on DNSSEC. The seminar will highlight the advances being made in DNS security, particularly in the adoption and availability of DNSSEC, the DNS Security Extensions. The event will be held at the Camden Court Hotel in Dublin. More info and registration details can be found at the link above.

DDoS protection vendor gets better value with Afilias as its new managed DNS provider

AUSTIN, Texas (HOSTINGCON) - 19 July 2010 -Afilias, a leading provider of Internet infrastructure services, announced that Black Lotus Communications has selected Afilias' FlexDNS^SM Platform to provide DNS infrastructure in support of its distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection solutions. Black Lotus needed to replace its previous DNS provider in order to improve its resiliency to DDoS attacks and achieve better economy in its DNS management. 

"Outsourcing our DNS allows us to focus on our core competencies and leverage numerous off-site nodes to discourage DDoS attacks against our name resolution infrastructure," said Jeffrey Lyon, President of Black Lotus. "Since switching to Afilias, we were able to cut our costs by more than 50 percent and receive more value for about the same cost of running our own off-site nodes."

Afilias' FlexDNS Platform provides three different ways to utilize Afilias' DNS network: A Web-based portal, AXFR (DNS zone transfer), or an Application Programming Interface (API). Black Lotus selected Afilias' Web-based portal, which provides a simple, easy-to-use online interface to manage DNS settings for small or large portfolios of domains. The Web-portal also provides bulk import functionality, an advanced reporting suite, and enhanced security alerts and notifications. 

Black Lotus also selected Afilias' SiteCertain^TM IP monitoring and failover service to ensure that their customers will always have a working IP address to failover to incase of emergency or compromise.

"Any organization that is providing critical services across the Internet needs to take their DNS seriously and ensure that they avoid single points of failure," said John Kane, Vice President of Corporate Services for Afilias.  "We are pleased to provide Black Lotus with both a valuable and cost-effective DNS solution to enhance the resiliency and reliability of their important DDoS protection services."

About Afilias Managed DNS Services

Afilias' state of the art DNS network ensures security and resiliency through a diverse Anycast architecture. Its multi-layered, tiered design uses multiple hardware and software solutions, multiple bandwidth providers, and is dispersed across numerous geographic locations, avoiding single points of failure and guarantee 100 percent up-time. Afilias' system also supports DNSSEC.  To learn more about Afilias' FlexDNS platform visit http://www.flexdns.info/

About Black Lotus (HOSTINGCON Booth #101)

Black Lotus Communications is first and leading in distributed denial-of-service protection solutions. The company was the first to market a commercially viable DDoS protection solution and provides protected hosting services, web proxies, IP tunnels, and the ecologically friendly LotusCloud VM, a dedicated server environment that is 16 times more efficient than its bare metal counterpart. For more information visit http://www.blacklotus.net/

About Afilias (HOSTINGCON Booth #535)

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services. For more information on Afilias please visit http://www.afilias.info/.

###

New service platform provides corporations and resellers with a flexible way to improve the reliability of their DNS network

DUBLIN, IRELAND – 17 June 2010- Today Afilias, a leading provider of Internet infrastructure services, announced the expansion of its Managed DNS services with the availability of its new FlexDNS^SM Platform. The FlexDNS Platform now provides Afilias’ DNS customers with three different options for managing their DNS over Afilias’ network: A Web-based portal, AXFR (DNS zone transfer), or an Application Programming Interface (API).

Afilias’ Managed DNS service, which leverages the DNS network that supports 15 top-level domains (TLDs) including .INFO and .ORG, has always provided a convenient Web-based portal that allows customers to manage their DNS easily and quickly. The FlexDNS platform expands this service with new features for registrars and others who offer Web services, or for users who have a need to make frequent changes to their DNS in an automated fashion. 

“Afilias’ Managed DNS service is becoming increasingly popular as threats across the Internet grow and organizations recognize the need for better DNS that can guarantee 100% up-time,” said John Kane, Vice President of Corporate Services for Afilias. “Other solutions are often limited in features or functionality.  However, with the launch of our FlexDNS Platform, Afilias makes DNS management easier for a wider range of customers, including registrars, whose domain customers often rely on them for DNS services.”  

“As the first DNSSEC-signed TLD, Afilias has made it easy for us to provide 100% reliable DNS,”  said Danny Aerts, Managing Director of the Swedish Internet Infrastructure Foundation which manages the .SE registry for Sweden and uses the AXFR portion of Afilias’ FlexDNS platform to provide Secondary DNS for their top-level domain.  

The FlexDNS Platform

Afilias’ FlexDNS Platform now makes three choices available for customers using Afilias’ diverse, secure and reliable AnyCast DNS network:

• Application Programming Interface (API): Afilias’ new API is ideal for customers like domain name registrars who need to integrate Afilias’ DNS offering into their own interface for ease of use, or to offer the API as a value added or premium DNS service. Afilias’ API is fully documented REST and XML-based.
• AXFR: Customers that update their DNS frequently need an automated solution that reflects these changes worldwide in near real time.  Afilias’ new AXFR option allows these customers to act as a “hidden master” and transmit their updates to Afilias via AXFR. This choice is especially useful for customers with large zones, like TLD registries, and it provides superior service in either a Primary or Secondary DNS role.
• Web-based portal: Afilias’ traditional Web portal remains available for customers with smaller domain portfolios and enables them to easily manage their DNS settings.  It offers extensive customization options including multiple user groups, domain folders, extensive Web-based reporting, bulk import, advanced permissions, and SMS notifications..

“Our FlexDNS platform provides an ideal solution for corporations as well as other managed service providers like hosting companies or domain name registrars who need to easily integrate a secure and reliable DNS network to augment their product offering,” added Kane. “Afilias provides significant cost savings over building out your own network, and provides DNS that is already proven to support millions of domains and billions of DNS transactions across the Internet.”

About Afilias Managed DNS Services

Afilias’ state of the art DNS network ensures security and resiliency through a diverse anycast architecture. Its multi-layered, tiered design uses multiple hardware and software solutions, multiple bandwidth providers, and is dispersed across numerous geographic locations, ensuring no single points of failure and 100 percent up-time, guaranteed. Afilias’ system also supports DNSSEC.  To learn more about Afilias’ FlexDNS platform visit www.flexDNS.info

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias’ reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services. For more information on Afilias please visit www.afilias.info.

The barriers to DNSSEC adoption are quickly disappearing. There are nearly 20 top-level domains that have already deployed DNSSEC including generic TLDs like .org and .gov. This July, the DNS root will also be signed, and will begin validating DNSSEC queries. At this point, the decision for remaining TLDs to deploy DNSSEC is really no longer a question. In fact, as it stands today, all new TLDs approved by ICANN will be required to have DNSSEC deployed at launch.

Afilias already supports .ORG’s deployment of DNSSEC and provides secondary DNSSEC service for other ccTLDs. Our experience in deploying DNSSEC demonstrates that you need to plan for an increase in strain on your DNS network if your ccTLD or gTLD plans to deploy DNSSEC.

Deploying DNSSEC will have three main effects on your DNS operations:

Larger Zone File Size

For every signed domain, your zone file will now have to store and provide not only the original DNS information such as Start of Authority (SOA) and other Resource Records, but also a digital signer record (DS) to point to the Public Key as well as the actual signature record (RRsig) for each RRset in your zone file for which you are authoritative.

On average, you should expect your zone file to increase 4-6 times its current size.

More than 50% of the DNS traffic Afilias serves today already requests DNSSEC information. When you sign your zone, you will be serving signature information immediately.

Delivering a larger zone file that is serving more records for every DNS query will increase the daily strain on your DNS servers, and could result in increased response times.

Greater Bandwidth Requirements

DNSSEC-enabled responses contain more information because they are now carrying an additional set of information (signatures and keys) that go along with every DNS query. On average, a DNSSEC response is about twice the size of a non-DNSSEC response.

You will need to factor in more bandwidth and processing power to handle larger responses for each DNSSEC query that you need to serve. Some of this is dependent on the DNSSEC configuration choices you make.

While our experience shows that the bandwidth increase associated with a signed zone is not orders of magnitude higher than an unsigned zone, we recommend that you plan for at least a 2-4 times increase in bandwidth required to respond to normal DNS query volume.

Increased DNS Traffic

There are a few reasons why you may see an overall bump in DNS traffic just because you enable DNSSEC.

DNS uses UDP, a lightweight protocol, to return responses for most DNS queries. BIND 9.4.x and earlier versions limit UDP responses to 512 bytes. Since DNSSEC information is larger, responses can be truncated, thereby forcing validating resolvers to ask for the DNSSEC information again using TCP. Most signed TLDs to date report a 1-2% TCP traffic increase overall.

 

Solving for these three significant operational impacts could cost you time, money and pull your resources away from other critical projects. And, it may even deter you from implementing DNSSEC even though it has become an essential part of TLD management.

We would like to suggest a simple solution that will lighten your load: back-up your DNS with a Secondary provider.

Why? It will reduce your overall risk by offloading part of your traffic onto someone else’s network that has already planned for higher peak capacities. It provides a more economical solution by minimizing the overall expense and capital requirements to expand your existing DNS network. And more importantly it provides a virtual insurance plan against unexpected traffic spikes not just for DNSSEC, but any DNS traffic spike or malfunction whether caused by network failure, DDoS, or a natural disaster affecting the geographic location of your existing nodes.

It’s easy, it’s economical and it makes your infrastructure more resilient.

Register now for a free Web Seminar “Lessons from the Trenches: Deploying DNSSEC” on June 9, 2010, featuring leaders from the .SE registry, .ORG The Public Interest Registry, Shinkuro, and Afilias. Register now.

 

DUBLIN, IRELAND - 1 June 2010 - Today Afilias, a leading provider of Internet infrastructure services, announced that its Chief Technology Officer, Ram Mohan, has been named to IDG's InfoWorld CTO 25 Awards for his work and innovation in deploying Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC) in the Internet's domain name system (DNS).

 

 

 

 

 "We congratulate Ram on this prestigious and well deserved recognition of his technology leadership which has improved DNS security across the Internet," said Hal Lubsen, CEO of Afilias. "The deployment of DNSSEC in our systems preceded a broader commitment to DNSSEC worldwide from other parts of the DNS ecosystem, including the Root zone operators, other domain registries, and major ISPs who are now deploying the technology to finally bring the security benefits of DNSSEC to end users."  

DNSSEC technology solves Internet security problems like the "Kaminsky bug" (also known as cache poisoning), a highly publicized critical flaw to the DNS which allows malicious third-parties to get control of the DNS communication channel between an end user and a Web site. DNSSEC is an Internet standard developed by the IETF over a decade ago that solves this vulnerability by attaching cryptographic signatures to each DNS query and response. However, large-scale DNSSEC implementation was stalled until .ORG, the Public Interest Registry began work on signing their top-level domain, with technical implementation carried out by Afilias (PIR's technical services provider).  Ram Mohan, CTO and Executive Vice President of Afilias, architected the deployment of DNSSEC for .ORG, one of the largest and most trusted domain name registries in the world, completing the signing of the top-level domain in June of 2009.

"This year's honorees reinvented untenable legacies, provided game-changing insight, and managed both their own teams and key organization stakeholders to make their businesses succeed through the use of technology. Our honorees did much more than implement technology well; they brought its use to a new level," said Galen Gruman, Executive Editor/News and Features, InfoWorld.   

"I am honored to receive this award and to be supported by an incredible team at Afilias. I'd also like to thank everyone at .ORG for their vision and commitment to DNSSEC," said Ram Mohan. "Much work has been done at the top of the DNS hierarchy, including ICANN, IANA and NTIA, to make DNSSEC a reality. Now is the time for the rest of the chain of trust, from registrars to application providers to enterprises, to embrace it and make DNS security a priority."

About the  InfoWorld CTO 25 Awards

Chief technology officers are often the unsung heroes of IT. They may drive new technology development for customer-facing and/or internal use. They may manage and improve the core technology that underpins the business operations. In any case, they translate the promise of technology into business benefit. Each year, the InfoWorld CTO 25 Awards honor senior IT executives who have demonstrated leadership within their companies and in the IT community.

 

Inclusion in the InfoWorld CTO 25 rankings does not imply endorsement of an organization's products or services.  Selection is based on the excellence and quality of the work environment, and not state or imply that your organization's product or service is being honored. The full list of 2010 winners is available at: http://www.infoworld.com/t/leadership/the-best-ctos-2010-618 

 

About InfoWorld Media Group

InfoWorld Media Group helps IT Decision Makers choose the right technology, within the context of a cohesive strategy for business impact at their organizations. InfoWorld identifies and promotes emerging technology segments that add unique value for the organizations that implement them, as well as the vendors that provide those solutions. Using an integrated communications approach including online, events, research, and a continued investment in an independent Test Center, InfoWorld analysts and editors provide hands-on analysis and evaluation, as well as expert commentary on issues surrounding emerging technologies and products. Visit InfoWorld at http://www.infoworld.com

 

About International Data Group

International Data Group (IDG) is the world's leading technology media, events, and research company. IDG's online network includes more than 450 web sites spanning business technology, consumer technology, digital entertainment and video games worldwide. IDG also publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers in 85 countries. IDG's media brands include CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Macworld, Network World, and PC World. IDG's lead-generation service, IDG Connect, matches technology companies with an audience of engaged, high-quality IT professionals, influencers, and decision makers. IDG is a leading producer of more than 750 technology-related events including Macworld Conference & Expo, LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, Entertainment for All Expo (E for All), DEMO, Storage Networking World, and IDC Directions. IDC, a subsidiary of IDG, is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events. Over 900 IDC analysts in more than 90 countries provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends.  Additional information about IDG, a privately held company, is available at http://www.idg.com.

 

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services. 

Afilias Managed DNS Services will be at Booth #622 at the 2010 Comptia Breakway Conference.  Join us in San Antonio to learn how to ensure 100% up-time reliabililty for your web presence with Afilias' DNS.  Afilias VP, John Kane will be speaking as part of the "Security in the Cloud" Panel to be held on August 12th at 11am.

The deployment of Domain Security Extensions (DNSSEC) has crossed another milestone this month with the publication of DURZ (deliberately unvalidatable root zone) in all DNS root servers on 5 May 2010.

While this change was virtually invisible to most Internet users, this event and the remaining testing that will occur over these next two months will dictate the ultimate success of DNSSEC deployment across the Internet.

Until now, ICANN and its partners have been rolling out DURZ to each of the root servers individually. With this step, all root servers now have DURZ. We will now get to see, before a validatable root zone is published, how the DNS infrastructure will behave as more queries for DNSSEC information result in larger responses. Answers to the important question about how the DNS scales with the addition of DNSSEC will hopefully start to filter in, as well as the opportunity to watch for abnormalities in the system. The final step in the root’s DNSSEC deployment will occur in July when a validatable root zone is published.

If you are an application provider, ISP, or a TLD registry thinking of DNSSEC deployment you should take this event as an actionable item and allow your technical teams time to participate in DNSSEC testing.

The next milestone will be the deployment of a validatable signed root. Signed TLDs will be able to submit their keys to the root zone after it is signed, creating a single, hierarchical, secure infrastructure, in contrast to the islands of trust we have today.

We have spent the better part of the past three years working closely with .ORG and the Public Interest Registry towards the deployment of DNSSEC in .ORG throughout the domain name system. This June, second level .ORG names will be able to submit their key information and be signed, which will propagate throughout the DNS, a first-ever in a major gTLD. We look forward to learning, sharing and helping the system become stronger across this and future DNSSEC deployments across the other TLDs we support.

Afilias' Desiree Miloshevic will be chairing this panel discussion entitled 'How long will the Internet remain a level playing field?' on Net neutrality at the University of Surrey, Guildforde. Networking and refreshments at 19.00 with the debate starting at 19.30. Visit the Web link to register for this free event!

Afilias Managed DNS Services is sponsoring the upcoming WHIR Networking event at C Lounge in Toronto, ON. Stop by for some complimentary cocktails and appetizers and meet up with your fellow industry insiders.  Also, enter to win an iPad compliments of Afilias!