ICANN Announcements

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Domain Name System Security Extensions Now Deployed in all Generic Top-Level Domains

23 December 2020

LOS ANGELES – 23 December 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers organization (ICANN org) announced that all of the current 1,195 generic top-level domains (gTLDs) have deployed Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC).

DNSSEC allows registrants to digitally sign information they put into the Domain Name System (DNS). This protects consumers by ensuring that DNS data that has been corrupted, either accidentally or maliciously, doesn't reach them.

A strategy of defense in depth, in which several independent layers of security controls are used so that if one fails another will be operative, can improve security of the overall system. DNSSEC can provide one tier of defense in depth for the Internet. In order to improve the security of the Internet, DNSSEC must be widely deployed across all TLDs. With .AERO signing its zone, 100% of gTLDs are now signed. This news is an important milestone as all now have DNSSEC, enabling its availability to their registrants.

"This is important news because it means that more users everywhere can have increased trust in the responses to DNS lookups" said David Conrad, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at ICANN org. "As DNSSEC deployment grows, the DNS can also become a foundation for other protocols that require a way to store data securely".

ICANN will continue to encourage those country code top-level domains that have not DNSSEC-signed to their zones to do so, and will encourage operators of DNS resolvers, which check DNSSEC signatures to verify the data has not been modified, to enable DNSSEC validation.

Interested in learning more about DNSSEC? Click the hyperlinks to access our dedicated webpage, explore our infographic, and read our DNSSEC Explainer.

About ICANN

ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address – a name or a number – into your computer or other device. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with a community of participants from all over the world.