DSSA Working Group Phase 1 Report

• DNS
• Security/Stability

This is the first of two reports from the DNS Security & Stability Analysis Working Group. The goal of this document is to bring forward the substantial work that has been completed to date and describe the work that remains. This has been in many respects a “pioneering” cross-constituency security-assessment effort that has developed knowledge and processes that others will hopefully find helpful and can be reused in the future.

The DSSA has:

• Established a cross-constituency working group and put the organizational framework to manage that group in place
• Clarified the system, organizational and functional scope of the effort
• Developed an approach to handling confidential information, should such information be required for certain assessments
• Selected and tailored a risk-assessment methodology to structure the work
• Developed and tested mechanisms to rapidly collect and consolidate risk-assessment scenarios across and broad and diverse group of interested participants
• Used an “alpha-test” of those systems to develop the high-level risk-scenarios in this report. Those scenarios will serve as the starting point for the remainder of the effort.

Work that remains:

• Perform a proof of concept to refine and streamline the methodology on one broad risk-scenario topic with the goal of reducing cycle time and making it more accessible to a broader community
• Roll the methodology out to progressively broader groups of participants to introduce the methodology to the community and further improve the process and tools on the way to completing the assessment.

Public comment is sought on the Phase 1 Report.

The objective of the DSSA Working Group is to draw upon the collective expertise of the participating SOs and ACs, solicit expert input and advice and report to the respective participating SOs and ACs on: The actual level, frequency and severity of threats to the DNS.

The DSSA Working Group was originally published on 15 June 2012 prior to the ICANN Prague meeting. The report was discussed at the DSSA Working Group open session in Prague, and details on that meeting can be found athttp://prague44.icann.org/node/31805.