[ISN] Q&A with ICANN's security chairman, Stephen Crocker

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Mon Feb 25 2002 - 23:14:08 PST

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    http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO68514,00.html
    
    By PATRICK THIBODEAU 
    February 22, 2002
    
    The software that runs the Internet's addressing system that helps
    make Web commerce and communication possible led the CERT Coordination
    Center's list of systems that faced serious intruder problems last
    year.
    
    The Internet Software Consortium's Berkeley Internet Name Domain
    (BIND) server software is key to running the Internet's Domain Name
    System (DNS). Since Sept. 11, the Internet Corporation for Assigned
    Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit group overseeing many of the
    Internet's technical issues, has been spending more time on security
    issues. It recently formed a security committee headed by Stephen
    Crocker, who helped develop protocols for Arpanet, the original
    network that became the basis for the Internet. In an interview,
    Crocker discussed some of the issues facing his committee.
    
    
    Q: ICANN is responsible for ensuring the stability of the DNS. From a
    security perspective, what does that entail?
    
    A: ICANN has a fair amount of responsibility, but there are a lot of
    other players as well. It's a cooperative business with other parties.  
    It has direct relationships with the registries who control the .com,
    .biz., .org, etc. [top-level domains].
    
    One area is to work closely with those parties to set the rules and
    procedures to ensure operations are smooth, reliable and resistant to
    being penetrated. There are also the root servers, the top-level
    machines that point to the .com, .biz, .org and .net machines. There
    are 13 of these root servers around the world, and they are somewhat
    independent.
    
    It's not terribly important who is in charge so much as whether or not
    everybody has the same shared picture of what to do. In general, we
    are concerned with both the availability of the domain name servers
    and the preservation of the integrity of the information provided by
    the servers.
    
    
    Q: Virtually all the DNS servers operate from a single code base, 
    BIND, which was recently cited by CERT as its top vulnerability 
    concern. How susceptible is BIND to attack, and what can be done about 
    it? 
    
    A: It clearly is one of the areas to look at. Actually, not all of the 
    servers are running BIND these days. Some diversity has developed, and 
    I expect this trend will continue. That said, BIND is clearly the 
    dominant implementation and deserves particular attention. 
    
    I think it worth knowing that the two most recent versions of BIND, 
    versions 8 and 9, are actually distinct implementations. This was done 
    at least in part to provide some diversity. That's the good news. The 
    bad news is that older versions of BIND are still in use. This is not 
    generally true at the servers for the root level or the top-level 
    domains, but it is a problem at many of the lower-level servers. In 
    general, the root servers and the top-level domain servers are more 
    secure than many of the lower-level servers, partly because the code 
    is more up to date and partly because the operators are more attentive 
    to configuration and operation. 
    
    There has also been in preparation for several years the DNS Security 
    Protocol, but it is not yet deployed. There are questions about how 
    soon it can be deployed. Those are two areas that our committee will 
    be examining. 
    
    
    Q: What are your options in terms of BIND? Should there be 
    diversification to other codes? 
    
    A: It's too early to know completely. Diversification has obvious 
    benefits, and as already noted, there has actually been some 
    diversification. There are also equally obvious benefits to having a 
    really good solid piece of code that has been examined by a bunch of 
    people. Paul Vixie [the primary author of the early versions of BIND 
    up through Version 8] has done enormously good work over the years and 
    continues to oversee the release of later versions of BIND. Others at 
    Nominum [a DNS vendor in Redwood City, Calif.] have been involved in 
    BIND Version 9. This is definitely an area that will command 
    considerable attention, and I frankly don't know the answer. Paul 
    Vixie, among many others, will be heavily involved in these 
    discussions. 
    
    
    Q: How vulnerable is the DNS? 
    
    A: I don't know yet. I do know if you were to take down all the root 
    servers ... the impact would only be incremental for a couple of days 
    before real trouble set in. 
    
    When you type in a name (www.icann.org, for instance), that has to be 
    translated to an IP numeric address. Your machine has the address of 
    local domain name server, usually run by your ISP. If it doesn't know 
    what that translation is, then it passes it up the line. If it's a 
    top-level domain that it's never seen, then it would go up to a root 
    server. You can think of a root server as a machine whose name is 
    simply "." [dot]. The root servers have pointers to all of the 
    top-level domains, .com, .us, .uk. If you took out even all of the 
    root servers, what would happen is that brand-new attempts to resolve 
    a name would be unanswered. That would be disturbing. But there are 
    copies of the primary information cached in many places, and the 
    information is updated every couple of days before it's refreshed. 
    
    So if you had a disruption in connectivity, everything would still go 
    along, but the updates would be disrupted. Meanwhile, service on the 
    root servers would be restored. This is not something where you need a 
    five-second response. 
    
    
    Q: The root servers, then, aren't in immediate danger? 
    
    A: The last thing in the world I want to suggest is that the sky is 
    about to fall in. It's quite the opposite. That's not to say that 
    there's not some serious work to do. But the system's been running for 
    quite a long time, and there is considerable amount of work that's 
    been put into it. I think we are in reasonable shape. That said, this 
    is definitely the time to take a comprehensive look at the overall 
    system. 
    
    
    
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