was hit by hackers in 2010
VeriSign, the internet services company, VeriSign Inc. is responsible for the integrity of web addresses ending in .com, .net and .gov, directing traffic for half the world’s internet users.VeriSign was hit by hackers in 2010 and its computers and servers were accessed several times, but the breach was not properly reported until late last year. The information was revealed in 2011 October filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and reported today. In the filing, VeriSign stated, "In 2010, the company faced several successful attacks against its corporate network in which access was gained to information on a small portion of our computers and servers. We have investigated and do not believe these attacks breached the servers that support our DNS (Domain Name System) network."VeriSign manages the Domain Name System for the .com and .net top-level domains, as well as the .name, .cc, and .tv domains. In addition, at the time of the attacks, the company sold and managed a large digital signature service, selling SSL and EV (extended validation) signatures that are used to secure websites and email and to sign code. The Internet security business unit was sold to Symantec in 2010.
The filing dated Oct. 28 last year claims that VeriSign's internal security group responded to the attacks soon after they occurred, but top management was not alerted about the breaches until Sept. 2011. VeriSign said it has since changed its reporting policies to make sure the same thing doesn't happen again. The company did not detail exactly when the attacks took place or what type of data may have been lost or compromised. VeriSign added in the filing it was unaware of any incidents in which information extracted in the hacks was used. But the Reston, Va.-based company admitted that "given the nature of such attacks, we cannot assure that our remedial actions will be sufficient to thwart future attacks or prevent the future loss of information. " A successful attack on the company's DNS, which converts requested URLs into the correct IP address and processes as many as 50 billion queries per day, could have allowed hackers to intercept users' emails or direct them to malware-laden web pages.
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