KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 — Some websites ending with the country-specific .my address are inaccessible due to a technical issue at MYNIC that handles the local Domain Name System (DNS).

Shortly before 5am this morning, MYNIC wrote on Twitter that it was facing problems linked to DNS Security Extensions and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

DNS allows computers and devices to find specific websites using human-readable addresses such as malaymail.com instead of their specific IP addresses. Without it, users must manually enter the numbers that represent these.

“We are currently experiencing some Technical Issue related to DNSSEC chain with IANA. We feel sorry for any inconvenience to the customers.

“We are working hard to resolve this issue as soon as possible. More details will be issued from time to time,” MYNIC wrote on its Twitter account.

The disruption may affect any website ending with .my, including key service providers and banks. Exacerbating the problem is the current festive holiday.

The same tweet was posted on MYNIC's website as an announcement today.

Prior to that tweet, Twitter user @upsfeup had asked the agency about issues with websites with the top level domain (TLD) or domain names ending with .my: “Having issues with .my TLD for hours... any estimation when it will be fixed @mynicberhad?”

MYNIC responded by saying it was aware and working to rectify the issue.

The issue was reported by the lowyat.net portal early today, when it said all websites using the .my domain name are being affected by what appears to be DNS servers going offline.

Lowyat.net said some website with the .my domain name may still accessible due to cached information in DNS resolvers globally, but said this will only last until the expiry of the caches.

It said mobile banking apps and online payment channels are affected by this problem.

Noting that many of the online banking website in Malaysia use the .com.my domains, the portal also advised consumers to be careful when using their credentials for any websites using the .com.my and .my domain names.

To access online financial systems, users need to use their online banking credentials such as username and passwords or token or biometrics.

The MYNIC company is an agency under the Communications and Multimedia Ministry.

MYNIC's own website, which also uses the .my domain name, states that it administers eight categories of domain names.

The eight categories are Malaysian individuals and organizations (.my), commercial organisations (.com.my), network-related organisations (.net.my), other organisations (.org.my), Malaysian educational organisations (.edu.my), Malaysian government organisations (.gov.my), Malaysian military organisations (.mil.my) and Malaysian individuals' personal use (.name.my).