DNSSEC adoption in Africa dimmed by other challenges

Recently, ICANN announced that it will work with the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and VeriSign on an operationally signed root zone this year.

The challenge of human capacity and awareness, cost of deployment, and lack of customer demand has affected Africa. For instance, in Kenya, out of 800 techies who are members of the skunkworks mailing list, only one can do DNSSEC validation for a client.

AfTLD and AfriNIC have identified this gap and have undertaken training on the importance of implementation, although the issue is part of the wider security challenge that most registries face.

The general lack of awareness and understanding of DNSSEC has led to over-estimation of the expense and difficulty of implementation, with registries choosing to handle the basics such as automation and re-delegation first.

"There are other challenges that are unique to Africa such as low penetration, which leads to smaller user base. These are also our advantages when it comes to implementation and training," Browne said.