Deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions improves global security for .INFO.

Afilias, a provider of internet infrastructure services and the Registry operator for .INFO, today announced that it has enabled Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) for the .INFO top-level domain (TLD). The company mentions that .INFO was officially signed on September 1, 2010 and its Delegation Signer (DS) records were entered into the DNS Root by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) on September 4th, allowing the .INFO zone to be validated using DNSSEC. It claims that the signing of the .INFO domain enhances global security for the TLD, home to more than 6.5 million registrations.

The company states that DNSSEC protects the DNS from cache poisoning exploits which can allow malicious entities to intercept an internet users' request to access a website, and redirect or eavesdrop on the user without their knowledge, and with no ability to reassert control. DNSSEC introduces digital signatures to the DNS infrastructure and automatically ensures that users are not hijacked and taken to an unintended destination.

It further states that while the company completed the largest Registry DNSSEC deployment on behalf of the Public Interest Registry when it enabled DNSSEC for .ORG in 2009-2010, the signing of the .INFO zone represents the first step in its recently announced "Project Safeguard" initiative, which will rollout DNSSEC across its Registry and DNS platforms. Project Safeguard also includes an education and training program for Registrars to enable DNSSEC in their registration systems for website owners who intend to add DNSSEC signatures to their individual domains.

The company articulates that now that the TLD is signed, it will activate a "friends and family" period that will allow the public to gain experience with a select group of .INFO second level domain names that have also been signed. Shinkuro Inc. and Comcast have agreed to participate in this testing period. The list of "friends and family" domains includes: afilias.info, info.info, shinkuro.info, comcast.info, and 19 other domains from Comcast. It says that later this year, the company will be enabling DNSSEC for many of the other TLDs that it supports, in total adding DNSSEC for 13 more TLDs before the end of 2010.

"The deployment of DNSSEC for .INFO continues Afilias' long-standing commitment to ensure security in the domain name system," said Ram Mohan, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Afilias. "Once fully deployed in .INFO, DNSSEC will provide a trusted foundation to authenticate DNS queries and responses and prevent DNS hijacking."