Leading to your question: wait, what’s Verisign?
Let’s quote Wikipedia:
Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet’s thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code top-level domains, and the back-end systems for the .jobs, and .edu top-level domains. Verisign also offers a range of security services, including managed DNS, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation and cyber-threat reporting.
In other words, it’s a real backbone of the web even though, like our actual backbones, you never see it unless something goes horribly wrong. As it seems to have done in 2010, when, we are now learning, the company was hacked a bunch of times. Verisign officials say they don’t believe the company’s Domain Name System Network was breached but can’t rule it out. If it was breached, hackers could take control of what websites you go to, setting up fake ones to steal your information. Looking to do your banking online? The hackers could set up a site that looks just like your bank’s site and direct you there. They could also intercept email from government or corporate employees. Verisign isn’t commenting. This is potentially an enormous story.
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