DNS security extensions (DNSSEC)

When a machine connected to a network wants to contact another machine, one of the first protocols called up is DNS (Domain Name System). The DNS is a distributed, hierarchical database most often used to match a machine name to its IP address. The information contained in the DNS is public, and DNS servers can be accessed by anyone. In its original design, DNS does not include any security services such as integrity or authentication, leaving the protocol vulnerable . To address these vulnerabilities, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has standardized DNS security extensions (DNSSEC).

DNSSEC