80% of government Web sites miss DNS security deadline

Most U.S. federal agencies -- including the Department of Homeland Security -- have failed to comply with a Dec. 31, 2009, deadline to deploy new authentication mechanisms on their Web sites that would prevent hackers from hijacking Web traffic and redirecting it to bogus sites.

Agencies were required to roll out an extra layer of security on their .gov Web sites under an Office of Management and Budget mandate issued in August 2008, although at least one expert calls that yearend deadline "a little aggressive."

Aggressive or not, independent monitoring indicates that only 20% of agencies show signs of deploying this new security mechanism, which is called DNS Security Extensions, or DNSSEC for short.


Source: Carolyn Duffy Marsan, IDG News Service, Retrieved on January 21, 2009 from news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=519CAE32-1A64-67EA-E410635A87B80381