DNSSEC: Upgrade your DNS protection

The DNS of your domain, service, or network is essential for it to be online and work properly. Unfortunately, you, I, and cyber criminals know it well. Consequently, they target it when they want to cause severe damage.

What does DNSSEC mean?

DNSSEC means Domain Name System Security Extensions. DNSSEC is a set of security measures for the Domain Name System (DNS) that aims to protect it against different types of attacks. DNSSEC uses digital signatures and cryptographic keys to verify the authenticity and integrity of DNS records, ensuring that the records provided by a DNS server have not been tampered with or altered in any way.

Let’s remember that when the DNS was created, the Internet was not as large as it is currently. Therefore, its original design did not include security. Nevertheless, the DNS proved to be a great creation. It became the backbone of the Internet, but it was very vulnerable. That is why DNSSEC got born. It brought the needed DNS protection against dangerous threats like man-in-the-middle attacks, DNS cache poisoning, and spoofing.

Why should you implement DNSSEC?

You should implement Domain Name System Security Extensions because:

The origin of data can be authenticated through it. Resolver servers will be able to cryptographically verify the data they receive to ensure they come from the zone that data packets point out.
DNSSEC will protect your domain’s security via a private and a public key for each DNS zone. The private key remains secret and known only by the owner of the zone. It will help her or him to generate the necessary digital signatures to sign the zone’s data. The public key will be available for whoever needs it. For instance, if a recursive server searches for DNS data requested by a user in a specific zone, it can validate the authenticity of such data using the public key. Only if the recursive server validates the data will it send them to the user. The recursive server will drop the data as a security measure if the data signature is invalid. The user won’t be harmed by the suspicious data. He or she will only get an error message.
DNSSEC protects your domain’s DNS. While verifying the integrity of DNS records prevents attackers from tampering with them with criminal objectives, like redirecting traffic to malicious websites. DNSSEC protects both the domain’s owner and users from potential harm.
DNSSEC enhances the availability and reliability of your domain’s DNS. A healthy DNS infrastructure can improve uptime, ensuring constant access for users.
Upgrading to DNSSEC strengthens your security defenses, and it is relatively straightforward but requires some technical knowledge. Different domain registrars and DNS providers offer DNSSEC support. They can assist with the implementation and configuration of DNSSEC for a domain, avoiding errors that can affect the DNS operation.

DNS Delagtion and DNSSEC

DNS delegation is a key aspect of domain name system management, allowing for the efficient distribution of responsibility over different domains or subdomains to various DNS servers. This process simplifies the management of large and complex domain structures by delegating control to more localized servers, like a university assigning different departments their own subdomains.

While DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) plays a less prominent but still important role in this context, it adds an extra layer of security by ensuring the authenticity of DNS data, particularly in the transfer of information between parent and child domains. This combination of delegation for management efficiency and DNSSEC for security assurance makes the DNS infrastructure more robust and reliable, especially important in today’s internet landscape where cyber threats are increasingly sophisticated.

Conclusion

Don’t leave your DNS vulnerable to criminal attacks. Instead, upgrade your DNS protection immediately by implementing DNSSEC. Remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

DNSSEC: Upgrade your DNS protection