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Why is DNSSEC Important? (Why Should I Care?)

You might be thinking to yourself: all this DNSSEC stuff sounds wonderful, but why should I care? Below are some reasons why you may want to consider deploying DNSSEC:

  1. Be a good netizen: By enabling DNSSEC validation (as described in Chapter 3, Validation) on your DNS servers, you're protecting your users or yourself a little more by checking answers returned to you; by signing your zones (as described in Chapter 4, Signing), you are making it possible for other people to verify your zone data. As more people adopt DNSSEC, the Internet as a whole becomes more secure for everyone.
  2. Compliance: You may not even get a say whether or not you want to implement DNSSEC, if your organization is subject to compliance standards that mandate it. For example, the US government set a deadline back in 2008, to have all .gov sub domains signed by the December 2009 [1]. So if you operated a sub domain in .gov, you must implement DNSSEC in order to be compliant. One of the widely used compliance standards, PCI DSS for the payment card industry, has been rumored to list DNSSEC as a requirement or recommendation, as part of its on-going efforts to enhance security for online payment transactions. ICANN also requires that all new top-level domains support DNSSEC.
  3. Enhanced Security (C.Y.A.) : Okay, so the big lofty goal of "let's be good" doesn't appeal to you, and you don't have any compliance standards to worry about . Here is a more practical reason why you should consider DNSSEC: in case of a DNS-based security breach, such as cache poisoning or domain hijacking, after all the financial and brand damage done to your domain name, you might be placed under scrutiny for any preventative measure that could have been put in place. Think of this like having your web site only available via HTTP but not HTTPS.
  4. New Features: DNSSEC brings not only enhanced security, but with that new level of security, a whole new suite of features. Once DNS can be trusted completely, it becomes possible to publish SSL certificates in DNS, or PGP keys for fully automatic cross-platform email encryption, or SSH fingerprints... People are still coming up with new features, but this all relies on a trust-worthy DNS infrastructure. To take a peek at these next generation DNS features, check out the section called “Introduction to DANE”.



[1] The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the US government published a memo in 2008 (www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/fy2008/m08-23.pdf), requesting all .gov sub-domains to be DNSSEC signed by December 2009. This explains why .gov is the most deployed DNSSEC domain currently, with more than 80% sub domains signed.


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