Quantum Computing Threat Pushes Internet Bodies to Speed Up DNS Security Upgrades

Internet governance bodies are expected to speed up efforts to prepare the domain name system (DNS) for a future in which quantum computers can break conventional encryption. John Crain, chief technology officer at ICANN, told The Register that he is aware of work under way within ICANN and other organisations to plan for this scenario. He said he has changed his view on the timing: where he once thought ten years was a reasonable window, he now believes it is probably less, perhaps three to five years.

The concern centres on DNSSEC, the security extensions that use public key infrastructure to verify that DNS records are genuine. Quantum computers theoretically pose a risk to this protection. One option is to use larger encryption keys that even a quantum computer would struggle to crack. However, larger keys mean larger zones, packets and responses, which run into message size limits in the DNS. They can also force traffic to move from single UDP messages, which DNS prefers, to multiple TCP packets.

Crain said ICANN, the IETF and other bodies have begun preliminary work on the problem. He estimated that preparing for the move from UDP to TCP will take a few years, and that deployment in a predictable manner is still some way off. He added: "We're going to ramp up the speed of development." This summary covers only the opening of the original article.