VeriSign (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider of digital trust services, today announced that it has expanded its Managed DNS Services to enable businesses and organizations to increase performance and streamline the management of the domain name system (DNS) infrastructure that supports their e-mail, e-commerce, or other Web applications. VeriSign also announced that several leading companies have purchased VeriSign(R) Managed DNS Services to ensure the reliability, security, and scalability of their DNS data.

VeriSign's services provide the management tools, redundancy, and physical dispersion necessary to maintain 100 percent uptime of any company's DNS, a recommendation espoused by the National Infrastructure Protection Center, a federal agency.

The effects of even temporary DNS downtime can be widespread. A recent study by research group Men & Mice found that of 5,000 .com domain names tested, 73 percent had incorrect DNS configurations and 38 percent allowed for a single point-of-failure. The resulting downtime can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue, lost productivity, decreased customer satisfaction and IT labor. For example the Yankee Group estimates that companies lose $100,000 on average in productivity alone for an hour of network downtime.

VeriSign is uniquely qualified to provide the DNS care and management that is critical to online operations, including Web sites, e-commerce and e-mail communications. As the registry for more than 27 million domain names in .com, .net and .org, VeriSign handles more than seven billion DNS look-ups per day. VeriSign's ATLAS(TM) (Advanced Transaction Look-up And Signaling system) will further scale these operations by accommodating more than 100 billion DNS look-ups per day within a fraction of a second to provide even faster domain name resolution and updates.

"Today's e-business would not work without DNS, which means that companies must create a comprehensive DNS management strategy," said Michael Hoch, senior analyst, Internet Infrastructure, Aberdeen Group. "Because it manages and guarantees the largest domain name registry in the world, VeriSign is fully equipped to help firms develop, deploy, and manage their company's domain name environments -- both in front of and behind the corporate firewall."

VeriSign has expanded its services to offer levels of support to fit the needs of any business or service provider, including an outsourced solution, a hybrid solution, and an in-house solution. VeriSign Managed DNS Services include:

-- DNS Hosting -- A complete outsourcing service that provides a
100 percent uptime service level agreement and security on VeriSign's
worldwide primary and secondary name server network, with a secure
Web-based interface to quickly and easily manage DNS data
-- DNS High-Availability -- A service that allows a firm to keep its
primary domain management in-house while directly integrating into
VeriSign's global secondary name server network to guarantee
availability and improve performance
-- DNS and IP Enterprise -- Software and appliance solutions that simplify
in-house DNS and IP address management with simple point-and-click,
graphical user interfaces, automation for commonly used tasks and
reporting templates. These products can be "plugged into" VeriSign's
high-availability service to achieve the highest possible levels of
redundancy

Customers include financial services firms, Web Service companies, professional services firms, retailers, and others who can select one or more of these solutions to manage their DNS operations. Many customers choose DNS Hosting, which runs on the same infrastructure that handles more than seven billion queries per day. "Our company's Internet presence is a business critical application and important marketing tool. Therefore DNS is very important to us," said Yakov Kravets, network engineer, Neuberger Berman, an investment advisory company. "VeriSign's enterprise level service met our requirements. It allows us to manage DNS changes quickly and independently and to achieve redundancy."

Other customers have opted for more than one Managed DNS service to tailor a DNS solution that is right for them. Bluefly (Nasdaq: BFLY), widely recognized as a leading Web retailer of brand name fashions, has adopted DNS Hosting and High Availability Services to support its customers. According to Pat Barry, COO and CFO of Bluefly, "We experienced a 19 percent increase in year over year sales in May. With that kind of growth, the stakes are high. VeriSign Managed DNS Services have not only provided the reliability bluefly.com requires, it has also simplified management of our DNS."

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc. (Nasdaq: HSII), one of the world's leading executive search firms, is currently migrating to VeriSign for DNS Hosting and High Availability Services to support much of its Internet based DNS infrastructure. Heidrick & Struggles is located online at http://www.heidrick.com. "We have 72 domains globally. VeriSign presented to us a DNS management system that gives us one interface to manage every domain," said David Voss, network engineer, Heidrick & Struggles. "With DNS High Availability, we are assured of around-the-clock DNS resolution for the
critical Heidrick & Struggles domains."

"DNS data is vitally important to the stability of the Internet, but its complexity and uniqueness cause most to be run at less than optimal levels," said Adam Zimmerman, vice president, VeriSign Global Registry Services.

"VeriSign has tailored its suite of Managed DNS Services to fit the needs of any business or service provider to ensure that Internet operations critical to their success stay up and running. In fact, in a recent survey, VeriSign's DNS Hosting customers reported a 94 percent satisfaction rate, with ease of use and the ability to make quick, reliable, accurate DNS updates cited as the service's key benefits."