Technology used by ICANN, the only solution certified to the highest security standard of FIPS 140-2 Level 4, now available

Loudwater, UK, 14 May 2014: Ultra Electronics AEP has launched a new Hardware Security Module (HSM) based solution, specifically aimed at customer facing application owners to enable them to implement Domain Name System Security Extensions. DNSSEC is a step forward in preventing attacks on the Domain Name System (DNS) which can lead application users into the path of fraudsters.

A report by analyst firm Gartner found that 3.6 million Americans were redirected to bogus websites in a single year, resulting in $3.2 billion in financial losses[1]. DNSSEC uses public key cryptography to prevent ‘cache poisoning’ attacks from occurring. Firms that implement DNSSEC gain assurance that visitors to their websites and online services will never be maliciously redirected by cyber criminals.

AEP’s technology is used by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body which coordinates the Internet's global DNS, and forms part of an international chain of trust.

Richard Lamb, Senior Program Manager at ICANN explains: “DNSSEC is a leap forward in preventing attackers from redirecting end users to websites under their own control (for account and password collection). At ICANN we use Ultra Electronics AEP because it’s the world’s only HSM that is wholly certified to FIPS 140-2 Level 4 – the highest level of security available.”

Lamb continues: “We are now at a stage where the majority of the Top Level Domains, such as .com and .uk .fr .us have deployed DNSSEC. This now needs to go to the next level down and every single responsible organisation with a web presence should look at DNSSEC and assess the risk to its customers and website visitors of being maliciously redirected to content elsewhere.”

Sonia Freed, Managing Director of AEP, adds: “Security of the DNS is an issue that affects every web user in the world and DNSSEC is the answer to protecting this fundamental pillar of the Internet. Making Ultra Safe DNSSEC available to all means corporate domain name holders in particular can implement secure DNS and put an end to the scourge of malicious re-directs once and for all.”

Freed continues: “Last year, search giant Google stated that just seven per cent of queries from the client side are DNSSEC enabled[2]. Basically this means that over 90% of Internet searches lead to sites where the DNS is potentially open to spoofing. There’s still a long way to go but now that progress has been made with top level domains, we should start to see this trickle down to secondary and corporate levels.”

The AEP Ultra Safe DNSSEC solution is available now and means organisations can maintain the strength of the chain of trust by using the same security technology that ICANN uses to secure the DNS of the Internet.

AEP’s Keyper PLUS HSM, offers many additional layers of security to the most critical piece of data; the cryptographic keys. It also provides hardware random number generation for the highest quality keys, a hardened platform, key management and resilience plus elliptic curve cryptography. The FIPS 140-2 Level 4 distinction has been earned because it is the only HSM that positively destroys the cryptographic keys on tamper detection. The toolkit consists of a pre-installed open source software stack provided on DVD.

[1] http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/09-RichardLamb-DNSSECdeployment.pdf
[2] http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/google-public-dns-now-supports-dnssec.html