May was the biggest month ever for .ca domain name registrations with 54,129 domain names registered, an increase of 38 percent over May 2019 when 39,319 were registered according to data from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) released today. It was the biggest single month for .ca registrations since CIRA was founded in 1998.
InternetNZ announced this week its new cybersecurity product, Defenz Domain Name System (DNS) Firewall, is available for a free four-month trial.
Canada’s ccTLD registry, CIRA, has made the internet a bit safer and more private this week with the launch of CIRA Canadian Shield – a free DNS firewall service that will provide online privacy and security to individuals and families across Canada.
Continue reading CIRA Provides Canadians With Free DNS Firewall To Enhance Security And PrivacyTechnology and internet use has changed in Canada since the COVID-19 pandemic began a survey data from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has found. Widespread school closures, social distancing, and work from home has significantly shifted how Canadians are using the internet to learn, work, and stay connected with friends and family.
The findings suggest that the number of Canadians working from home has skyrocketed, and that many are experiencing slower internet speeds as video streaming and video and teleconferencing are on the rise.
“COVID-19 has changed everything. It feels like overnight the entire country had to move their work, schooling, and social calendar online,” said David Fowler, vice-president, marketing and communications, CIRA, the company that manages the .ca ccTLD.
“Over the past few weeks, the power of the internet to connect us has never been more clear, nor more important. The data shows how the country is coping with our massive shift online. There are struggles as Canadians discover that working from home isn’t without its pitfalls, but we are also seeing families and friends playing games, hosting video conference parties and connecting online like never before. As Canadians do their part to fight this virus, we hope this data helps shine a light on what folks are doing online during this very unusual time in our country’s history.”
ICANN today [26 Aug] announced that it has selected China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), and Nominet as its Emergency Back-end Registry Operator (EBERO) providers.
An EBERO provider is temporarily activated if a generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) operator is at risk of failing to sustain critical registry functions. Ensuring the availability of these functions protects registrants, also known as domain name holders, and provides an additional layer of protection to the Domain Name System (DNS), and industry ecosystem.
“CNNIC, CIRA, and Nominet all have the experience, staff, and systems required to execute an efficient transition should an EBERO event occur,” said Cyrus Namazi, Senior Vice President of ICANN‘s Global Domains Division. “Their geographic diversity is also a benefit, enabling nearly continuous coverage across multiple time zones, and the ability to provide services in multiple regions in case of local disasters.”
âWe are honoured to be among this select group of trusted registry operators. In a short time period, the CIRA Registry Platform and DNS have been recognized as among the most advanced and robust platforms for managing a top-level domain,” said Dave Chiswell, vice president, product development, CIRA. “When we transitioned .CA to our new platform we incurred only eight hours of downtime. Our technology and know-how enable us to migrate a registry quickly and will be essential should our services ever be required in an emergency.â
EBEROs have demonstrated years of experience in operating domain name services, registration data directory services and extensible provisioning protocol services. Additional requirements for the EBERO service are noted in the Request for Proposal published here.
Click here for more information about the EBERO Program.
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 â a name or a number â 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.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2019-08-26-en. It also includes an additional quote from CIRA’s Dave Chiswell.
The importance of keeping ones domain name secure is something that many organisations and people take for granted. With .ca domain names in mind, but also being applicable to all domain name registrants, the Canadian ccTLD manager CIRA has provided a handy Ultimate Domain Name Security Checklist.
CIRA note âit can be easy to forget just how many applications rely on the DNS to function, and how critical domain names are to the entire internet ecosystem.â
âIf you manage a .CA domain name, or any other domain name, it is critical to understand just how central they are to both the functioning of your business and the security of your systems. No matter how small your business is or how insignificant some of your domains may be, if they become compromised they can cause headaches that spread throughout your ecosystem. Even old, unused domains can be used by hackers to infiltrate or embarrass your organization.â
The guide has a checklist of the following records domain name registrants should keep and actions they should take:
The original version of the checklist on CIRAâs website was created in HTML allowing for copy/paste directly into Github, Jira, Confluence, or wherever else workflow is managed. CIRA recommend reviewing and updating once a year.
In their post, CIRA acknowledge the âchecklist is pretty exhaustiveâsome would say itâs the ultimateâif you would like dive deeper into domain name security, we suggest you take a look at A Registrant’s Guide to Protecting Domain Name Registration Accounts from ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC).â
âOur friends at Akamai also recently published a great guide: Protecting your domain names: Taking the first steps. It goes into detail on a few of the items in our checklist and has some great insight.â
To copy/paste the original of the checklist, go to the original version on the CIRA website here.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) released a research report last week displaying Canadians’ opinions and experiences regarding the internet and fake news, privacy, cybersecurity and access. Based on a survey of over 1,200 Canadian internet users in December 2018, the report highlights areas of concern, including apprehension around the upcoming Canadian federal election. The report also indicates what Canadians want from industry, the Canadian government and citizens themselves to create a better internet in Canada.
CIRA’s report offers several recommendations to improve Canada’s internet, including enhanced investments by the Canadian government, actions around cybersecurity and privacy that Canadian businesses can take right away and opportunities for Canadian citizens to improve the internet they rely on every day.
“With the rise of misinformation online and threats to digital privacy and cybersecurity, Canadians are demanding more of government, industry and others when it comes to Canada’s internet,” says CIRA’s CEO Byron Holland. “The question that remains is how best to give Canadians what they want, while maintaining the open, interoperable internet that has become ubiquitous in the lives of most Canadians.”
The report comes out in the lead up to the upcoming
Canadian Internet Governance Forum, taking place this week in Toronto, where internet stakeholders from across the country will meet to discuss these key issues. CIRA is a sponsor, co-organiser and participant.
“There are some basic actions that can be taken today to increase Canadian privacy and security online,” says Jacques Latour, CIRA’s chief security officer. “Canadian businesses must learn and follow privacy laws and make cybersecurity a priority. Governments must invest and participate in local infrastructure such as Canadian internet exchange points to keep data local, and Canadians must learn to spot and avoid personal cyber threats such as phishing emails.”
“With a federal election around the corner, fake news is a real concern and Canadians agree,” says David Fowler, CIRA’s vice president of marketing and communications and vice-chair of MediaSmarts board of directors. “Canadians see social media companies, the government and journalists as key players to halt misinformation online. But citizens themselves have a role to play and increased investments in media literacy will help Canadians spot fake news and thereby thwart its influence.”
To read the full report visit cira.ca/betterinternet.
Some of the key facts on Canadian internet users highlighted by CIRA are:
Of Canadian internet users:
· 75% say they come across fake news at least sometimes
· 70% are concerned that fake news could impact the outcome of the next federal election.
· 72% are willing to disclose some or a little personal information in exchange for a valuable/convenient service.
· 87% are concerned that businesses with access to customers’ personal data willingly share it with third parties without consent.
· 86% believe it is important that government data, including the personal information of Canadians, be stored and transmitted in Canada only.
· 87% are concerned about a potential cyberattack against organizations with access to their personal data.
· Only 19% say they would continue to do business with an organization if their personal data were exposed in a cyberattack.
· 78% are concerned about the potential security threats related to the Internet of Things.
· 69% believe the high cost of internet services, including for mobile data, is hurting Canada’s economy and prosperity.
· 83% believe that universal access to high-speed internet is important for Canada’s overall economic growth and prosperity.
· 70% agree that the Canadian government should be doing more to support public access to high-speed internet.
· 75% say they only know a little or hardly anything about the topic of global control and regulation of the internet.
· 50% are concerned that the global internet could fracture into regional blocks that adopt very different regulatory principles and policies.
CIRA announced Monday it has added 2 new ccTLD partners for its D-Zone Anycast DNS service – Singapore (.sg) and Chile (.cl), taking to 10 ccTLDs that use the service, as well as adding 2 new global nodes in Brazil and Japan – as the company best known as the manager of the Canadian ccTLD .ca continues to spread its wings.
The addition of Singapore Network Information Centre (SGNIC), the country code top level domain manager for .sg and NIC Chile, who manages .cl, adds 180,000 and 570,000 domain names under management respectively to its service.
CIRA now has 25 nodes across the globe providing a robust network that powers D-Zone Anycast DNS for their ccTLD customers which answers approximately 180 million DNS queries per day for its TLD customers to help provide greater resiliency to their networks.
The 10 ccTLDs that now use CIRAâs D-Zone Anycast DNS are .cl, .cr (Costa Rica), .dk (Denmark), .nl (Netherlands), .nu (Niue), .nz (New Zealand), .pt (Portugal), .se (Sweden), .sg and of course Canadaâs .ca. D-Zone Anycast DNS answers queries for nine percent of all global ccTLDs domain names.
DNS Anycast technology deploys identical DNS servers in different locations often in different countries. It means that when a node is taken offline, due to maintenance or for nefarious reasons, the end user doesnât notice and DNS services continue. During a cyberattack, with nodes deployed around the world one node can bear the brunt of an attack leaving others unscathed. For businesses, DNS Anycast services can be deployed to improve performance of websites and load times for web pages. With multiple nodes, the customer is closer to a node and performance improved.
âWe were looking for DNS partner with a global reputation and solid infrastructure. We found that partner in CIRA and look forward to a productive relationship,â said Queh Ser Pheng, General Manager of SGNIC.
âCIRA’s global reputation in the ccTLD community provided us with the confidence that we could trust them with our DNS. Our customers demand the highest standards of uptime and security and D-Zone Anycast DNS helps us deliver that,â said Eduardo Mercader Orta, Director of Operations, NIC Chile.
âCIRA is proud to partner with ccTLDs to provide a stable, secure, high performance DNS. Starting with DNS, our relationships have expanded to be true partnerships that include collaboration and information sharing with our ccTLD peers around the globe,â said Mark Gaudet, DNS Program Manager, CIRA.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has released its 2018 CIRA Cybersecurity Security Survey which provides an overview of the Canadian cybersecurity landscape.
For the survey, CIRA, the .ca country code top level domain (ccTLD) registry, surveyed 500 individuals with responsibility over IT security decisions at small and medium-sized businesses across Canada to learn more about how they are coping with the increase in cyber threats. The sample included both business owners and employees who manage information technology.
“A key element of building a better online Canada is ensuring Canadians have safe, secure internet access,” said Byron Holland, president & CEO, CIRA. “Through our experience in managing the .CA domain for Canadians, we hope to help lend our expertise in safeguarding Canadaâs internet so that Canadian businesses can thrive online.â
In partnership with CIRAâs technology partner, Akamai Technologies, the full report has been released to coincide with Small Business Week in Canada.
“Training and awareness are critical to ensuring your business is cyber-secure,” Jacques Latour, chief security officer, CIRA. “No matter how great your IT team is, anyone with a network-connected device can be the weak point that brings your business down.”
The report’s key findings are:
Read the full report: https://cira.ca/2018-cybersecurity-survey-report
Registering domain names in a country code top level domain often has benefits to that country’s local internet community. In the case of Canada’s ccTLD, Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA who manages .ca, recently explained how in a post on the company blog. Continue reading CIRA Explains Why Registering ccTLD Domains Benefits the Local Internet Community