DNS Abuse in Africa: How ICANN is making the impact through Coalition for Digital Africa.
ICANN — The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Ianotri_tail Telecommunication System Support. ICANN Plays a Critical Role in the Fight Against DNS Abuse In an age when internet availability, for everyone, is on the rise within Africa, as it is elsewhere around the world.
These businesses and individuals could experience loss of service, disruption of business operations or other damages due to DNS-related abuse across the internet such as phishing, malware distribution, denial-of-service attacks and more. These attacks tend to result in financial losses, data breaches, and reputational damage to companies.
By signing the root keys it is an important process step to secure DNS. The process includes digitally signing the DNS root zone file – base of all the Domain Name System hierarchy. Signing the root keys allows for verifying DNS records are real and not being modified by someone on the internet.
It should be a concern for all businesses, large and small. Even small businesses can become a target, with attacks which may prevent the business from operating as usual and just as significantly damage its online reputation. Through awareness of the risks and forward-thinking solutions, businesses can avoid the possible resulting effects of DNS abuse.
African governments have a key role to play in responding to DNS abuse. They can:
- Raise awareness: Increasing general knowledge among the business and end user community about both the threat from DNS abuse as well as why organizations need to have security around that service.
- Support of ICANN: offer resources and collaborate with ICANN in order to enable the latter to address DNS abuse threats effectively within the area
- Regulation: Create and enforce regulations in the DNS ecosystem, which would allow perpetrators of malicious activities to be persecuted.
Establishing a DNSSEC Response Team, tasked with responding to incidents on DNS security would go a long way. In this regard, addressing DNS abuse in Africa effectively would require establishing collaboration between ICANN, ISPs, and government agencies of a country with a specific emphasis on information sharing and response.
Such a team (DRT) would:
- need training on DNSSEC technologies, incident response procedures among the best practices. Stakeholders would make sure that the adequate resource are available in making the DRT effective, including technical and financial expertise.
- would establish clear guidelines and protocols for coordination activities by the DRT with other organizations involved, such as CERTs and law enforcement agencies.
To that effect, ICANN works with governments in Africa to improve DNS security and shield the region from negative effects caused by the abuse of DNS.
by Adebunmi Akinbo
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