Negligible impact seen on internet service due to upgradation of keys at servers: ICANN

NEW DELHI: Global Internet body ICANN said on Friday that it has noted only a handful cases where Net services might have affected adversely due to the upgradation of 'keys' at vital web servers that took place on October 11. "It is now about 20 hours since the rollover and based on all information we have, everything is going smoothly. There have been only a small handful of reports of issues suspected to be caused by the rollover. In all cases it appears the impact was minor and the issues were quickly resolved," an ICANN spokesperson told . ICANN has announced in July 2016 to upgrade cryptographic keys that are required to access security system of website names, called Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). When an internet user types a website on his browser, the broadband or Internet modem transmits that name to a system called resolver-- which converts the website name in to numeric form containing code and server address of the website. ICANN has asked all internet service providers to upgrade their software that resolves the website name in to digital code and directs the traffic to right server. DNSSEC is an additional layer which validates the website name has been converted correctly. The keys required to accesses the DNSSEC central server system called root zone were implemented in 2010 and hence were required to be upgraded for protection. The transition was planned for October 11 , 2017 but was deferred by a year due to unclear data received just before the rollover. Before running the system upgrade, ICANN had estimated that more than 99 per cent of users whose system are validating DNSSSEC will be unaffected by the rollover while the body that handles website name allocation in Asia, Regional Internet Registry for the Asia Pacific region (APNIC) had estimated that only 0.05 per cent of Internet users would be negatively affected by the transition. The ICANN spokesperson said no one can know definitively which operators have enabled DNSSEC validation on their resolvers, and because no one but the operator can tell if a resolver with DNSSEC validation enabled was ready for the rollover. "...no one could know exactly which users might be affected by the KSK rollover and where they would be," the spokesperson said. However, Internet service providers whose system did not perform DNSSEC validation function will not be impacted by the transition at all. According to ICANN estimates are that about two thirds of users are behind resolvers that do not yet perform DNSSEC validation.

If you face internet problems over the next 48 hours, you may do well to not sweat about it too much. That is because the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will be updating the cryptographic key that helps protect the Domain Name System (DNS), which can also be considered the world-wide web’s address book. The ICANN, which is based in Los Angeles, California, is responsible for maintaining the registry of domain names and IP addresses on the internet.

What is a DNS?

The DNS addresses can be considered as address book for the internet. The way it works is that it understands the web addresses we punch into the web browsers in our PCs and phones, for example, and then matches them in the database with the correct domains and internet protocol (IP) addresses—so that you are directed to the page you actually need to go. Every web domain is listed in this directory. And this is how all the web traffic is managed and directed correctly.

What does the ICANN need to do?

Keeping in mind the ever increasing and changing security threats on the internet, ICANN needs to update the encryption keys for the DNS addresses. This means that the DNS, and subsequently the webpages that it links to, will be unavailable during the process of updating. It will be as if those pages don’t exist, for that duration. Alternatively, some pages on a domain could still be accessible, but they will load very slowly. 

Will my internet be completely dead?
No, ICANN’s process of updating the encryption does not mean that the entire internet will be unavailable, or that we will have a complete shutdown of the world wide web. It will happen in batches, and could see certain websites, web pages and web based services and resources being unavailable for a certain duration of time. Once the new security measures are updated and authenticated, things should be back to normal.

It is interesting to note that most websites are cached as well, so the changes or the break in content during this update period could actually be noticeable in a couple of days post the encryption key update. As per ICANN’s estimates after initial tests, only 1% of the total internet users around the world are expected to be impacted by the shutdown. That would still calculate to more than 36 million people, at least, as per the numbers shared by the organization. The problem perhaps gets compounded when you aren’t able to access Netflix over the weekend.

What should I do?
Nothing at first—wait it out. If the websites and web pages are still not accessible, you could do well to restart the router installed at home—this will ensure that it accesses the DNS data updated by your internet service provider. If the problem persists, that could be because your internet company is still using outdated DNS, which means they need to wake up and smell the coffee.