[Infowarrior] - VeriSign Adds TLD Servers

[Richard Forno]

February 8, 2007
VeriSign Moves to Address an Internet Security Problem
By JOHN MARKOFF
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/technology/08net.html?pagewanted=print

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7 ‹ To keep up with the growing strains put on the
Internet by both legitimate users and online attackers, a Silicon Valley
company is undertaking a $100 million expansion of a crucial part of the
system that speeds Web users to their destinations.

The company, VeriSign, is a leader in networking infrastructure and manages
registration for the .com and .net Internet domains. It is among the
stewards of an international system of computer servers running programs
that translate domain names like google.com or wikipedia.org into numeric
addresses.

But the system is under increasing strain because of the explosion of human
and machine Internet users and because of occasional assaults by automated
software programs that threaten to overwhelm the ability to respond to
routine requests.

VeriSign executives said their expansion project, to be announced Thursday,
was crucial because of the increasing role that the Internet plays in basic
functions of modern life.

³This isn¹t just about Web sites anymore, and it¹s not about online
shopping,² said Ken Silva, VeriSign¹s chief security officer. ³It¹s about
the way humans communicate and the way everything is interconnected.²

The potential challenge was underscored on Tuesday when an automated attack
against the domain name system was carried out for several hours by a
distributed computer program known as a botnet.

The attack initially affected all of the 13 root server systems ‹ the top
level of the hierarchy of interconnected computers ‹ and then focused for
several hours on servers operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers, the organization responsible for the Internet address
system, and the Pentagon.

The attack impeded but did not halt any of the systems, according to several
of the operators.

Such attacks make expansion of the name server systems crucial, Mr. Silva
said. The VeriSign project, to be completed by 2010, will offer a tenfold
increase in the capacity of two root servers that the company operates and
of the infrastructure that supports the .com and .net systems.

VeriSign servers, now in 20 regional centers around the world, will be
expanded to 70 sites. The effort would not only improve response time, the
company said, but would also make it possible to diagnose and contain
Internet attacks more quickly.

VeriSign profits indirectly from the growth of Internet traffic from its
business managing the .com and .net domains.

In addition to resisting cyber attacks, the enhancement of the root server
system is made necessary by the rapid growth in new types of Internet
devices, many of which can communicate among themselves without direct human
intervention.

The company said it expected the number of Internet users to grow from one
billion today to 1.8 billion in 2010. Many will reach the Internet with
multiple devices, including cellphones, most of which are expected to be
Internet-enabled.