The 21st century has already revealed itself as the era of asymmetric warfare in the offline world, and the same is undoubtedly true in cyberspace. For better or worse, the Internet is a great leveler -- the same low barriers-to-entry that allow disruptive business models and technological innovation to thrive also enable criminals and enemy states to more easily create weapons of mass disruption. The threat is greater to established economies, which have more to lose economically from Internet-based attacks.

Roland LaPlante, CMO of Afilias, speaks at the iBreakfast event, "'Master of Your Domain: New TLDs," held at at Herrick, Feinstein LLP (NYC) on August 3, 2011.

Industry leaders from Afilias (among others) discussed their respective experience in the space, technologies, clients, goals, strategic partnerships, user base and predictions.

The number of top-level domains on the Internet is set to increase dramatically over the next few years. Today's familiar .com, .org and .info addresses are going to be supplemented with dozens or hundreds of new extensions such as .blog, .sport, .london, .music and .gay. This rapid expansion will happen under the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) program launched by ICANN, the non-profit organization that oversees the Domain Name System (DNS). The ability of any company to apply for a new “dot.anything” or “dot.brand” gTLD is expected to bring increased consumer choice and technological innovation to the Internet's addressing systems. But will it also spur the adoption of enhanced Internet security? There are good reasons to believe it may, particularly within the addressing system itself.

Afilias, a registry services provider, has published a brochure and a short film on the strategic aspects of the new TLDs entitled "Envisioning Your .Brand New World: A Field Guide for Brand Builders.". While there is commercial intent behind these resources, they are nonetheless a useful primer on the importance of the new TLDs for brand owners.

WHIR Networking Event: Montreal. Held Thursday, July 21, 2011 at
Koko Restaurant + Bar, 8 Sherbrooke Ouest Montreal, QC H2X 4C9, Canada.

“There are some folks with country-code TLD experience, but that’s not the same thing as a gTLD under contract to ICANN,” Roland LaPlante explains. Recently, many new companies have appeared to provide new gTLD services, but LaPlante advises brand owners: “If you want to avoid risk with your major brand then you really have no opportunity but to go with somebody who’s experienced and knows what ICANN will ask you to do.” That said, there are larger, more experience companies than Afilias at running registries – not least Verisign, the ‘.com’ and ‘.net’ registry. However, Verisign’s stewardship of over 100 million domain name registrations is actually its weakness. “If anything goes wrong in ‘.com’ and ‘.net’, whichever other TLD they’re supporting will be put on the second shelf,” he says. “Our core business model is about supporting other people’s businesses and doing everything possible to make those TLDs successful.”

The next time you type in an address ending in ".org" or ".info," chances are good that your Web browser will head first to the servers of one such company in Horsham: Afilias.

An in-depth article about Afilias customer Big Room, who are applying for .eco under the ICANN new TLD program (a.k.a. "dot.BRAND"): "One Vancouver company has been planning for this day since 2007. Founded by environmental activists Trevor Bowden, Jacob Malthouse and Anastasia O’Rourke, Big Room Inc. wants to own and manage the top-level domain dot-eco on behalf of “the global sustainable community.”

According to Ram Mohan, CTO at Afilias, when cybercriminals have enough detailed, information they can construct highly targeted phishing runs aimed at known customers of affected companies. “Many savvy net users have learned to be suspicious of emails beginning with Dear Customer or other vague salutations, but these targeted spear phishing attacks can look a lot more convincing. If you already have a business relationship with a company and receive a realistic-looking email purportedly from that company, you're a little more likely to believe the phisher's overtures are genuine if they address you by name. Many of these recommendations may appear to be basic, but it is surprising how often they go unheeded. Recently, court documents revealed that the publisher Condé Nast handed more than $8 million over the course of several months to a fraudster posing as a regular supplier. An employee was on the receiving end of an extremely targeted spear-phishing attack.”

Do you allow your employees to surf using open wireless networks from their phones or laptops? What are the easiest ways that attackers can sniff email or gain access to corporate information from these devices? What are the best ways to protect corporation information on the go?

Afilias and Right Of The Dot have announced a partnership to jointly assist new top-level domain applicants. Right Of The Dot is Monte Cahn and Mike Berkens’ latest venture, a consulting firm focused primarily on helping new registries price their “premium” second-level domains. Afilias runs the .info registry and provides registry services for many other TLDs, including .org. The Afilias deal is the first major partnership Right Of The Dot has announced.

International domain name registrar Afilias has allied with major web host HiChina, to help Asian companies to pursue what they call a "dot.BRAND" approach. Afilias senior VP Roland LaPlante said that "a dot.BRAND TLD lets major companies control how customers experience their brand online and helps break through the noise and clutter online."

Domain name registry and managed DNS service Afilias entered into a formal agreement with Chinese Internet services provider HiChina (subsidiary of Alibaba) to help Chinese brands take advantage of the new TLD program.

For CIOs and other executives who haven't focused on how new gTLDs will affect their online business, "now is the time to panic,'' said Roland LaPlante, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Afilias, which provides registry services for .info, .org and 13 other top-level domains. "You need to get your team together and make a go/no-go decision about whether to apply. You need to get busy with the application, which has 50 questions ... 22 of them relate to technical issues.''

International domain name registrar Afilias has allied with major web host HiChina, to help Asian companies to pursue what they call a “dot.BRAND” approach. Afilias senior VP Roland LaPlante said that “a dot.BRAND TLD lets major companies control how customers experience their brand online and helps break through the noise and clutter online”.

Technology Review: "DNSSEC will confirm the name of the site that I'm dealing with, and that becomes a fact that browsers can take advantage of to help mitigate against certain kinds of phishing attacks," says James Galvin, director of strategic relationships and technical standards at Afilias, an Internet infrastructure provider. "But that's a place we have to get to, and we aren't there."

The Anti-Phishing Working Group reported that more than one-third of respondents to a new Web Vulnerabilities Survey were repeat victims of phishing attacks that resulted in a successful establishment of phishing or spoofing websites on their Web server platforms.

The Cloud — while great — doesn't Absolve companies from taking fundamental precautions to safeguard their systems.

Ensuring your organization can survive the transition through a mixed v4/v6 environment with minimal business impact should be a C-level or board-level concern, much like the Y2K problem was over a decade ago. Compliance will need to be aligned with business objectives, and these directives need to flow from the top. Just because the Internet as a whole will not experience an IPocalypse, that does not mean you can afford to be complacent about the transition to IPv6. It's coming, and it's coming quickly.