What it is
In plain words, before anything else.
When somebody types your address, their computer asks the internet's directory where to find you. DNSSEC signs that answer so a forged one can be spotted and thrown away.
Without it, an attacker in the right position can answer for you: your customers type your address, see something that looks like your site, and hand over whatever it asks for. Nothing in the browser tells them.
What it costs you
The loss you never see happen.
The damage is done in your name and by people who trusted you. That is the part that does not repair.
It is free at almost every registrar and takes minutes, which is why leaving it open is worth ten of those minutes today.
Check it yourself
Do not take our word for it. Look.
This takes about a minute, costs nothing, and needs no account with us or anybody else. A finding you have confirmed with your own eyes is the only kind worth acting on.
- 1
Sign in to whoever you bought your domain from and look for DNSSEC in the domain settings.
- 2
Enabled means it is done. A switch you have never touched means it is not.
- 3
Some hosts do not support it at all. If yours does not, that is not your fault and it is worth knowing before you go looking for a setting that is not there.
What we found
Out of 186 businesses we checked ourselves.
- 181 of 186
had not finished this. Sixteen had nothing in place at all and one hundred and sixty five had part of it. Five had finished it properly.
Counted from our own checks of 186 real businesses, measured on 2026-09-10, one count per business. No business is named and none of their reports is public. The full write ups are in what we found.
How we fix it
What we do, and what we leave alone.
We tell you the exact setting at your own registrar and confirm on the next check that it took.
We cannot switch it on for you, because it lives in the account where you bought your domain, and we will not ask for that password.
Next
The checks closest to this one.
- V1
The padlock, and what happens to a business without one
Visitors get a warning. Careful software does not get a warning, it simply refuses. - V3
Anyone can send email as you until you stop them
A stranger can send mail from your address today, to your customers, and it will look genuine. - V4
Proving that something really came from your business
An invoice from you and a convincing fake from somebody else look exactly the same to the person holding one.
Is this one open on your site?
The free check runs all sixteen against your own address and tells you which came back clean, in the same plain words as this page.
Free. No signup. Takes about a minute.