ICANN Accra Meeting Topic: Approval of Security Committee Charter

Posted: 7 March 2002

Background

At its November 2001 meeting, which focused on security issues, the ICANN Board directed the President "to appoint a President's standing committee on the security and stability of the Internet's naming and address allocation systems. The President is directed to develop a proposed charter, with at least a focus on risk analysis and auditing thereof, in consultation with the President's standing committee, and to submit it to the Board for its approval."

On 11 February 2002, ICANN announced the appointment of Dr. Stephen Crocker to serve as chair of the Security Committee. Working with Dr. Crocker, ICANN's President has been working on finalizing the remainder of the committee's membership.

Draft Committee Charter

As contemplated in the November 2001 Board resolution, ICANN's President has consulted with Dr. Crocker and the other committee members to prepare a draft charter for this committee, which will be presented to the ICANN Board at its Accra meeting, March 2002. The text of the draft charter is as follows:

Committee on Security and Stability
DRAFT Charter

The Committee on Security and Stability will advise the ICANN community and Board on matters relating to the security and integrity of the Internet's naming and address allocation systems. Reporting directly to the Board, the Committee is chartered is to undertake the following tasks:

• To develop a security framework for Internet naming and address allocation services that defines the key focus areas, and identifies where the responsibilities for each area lie. The committee will focus on the operational considerations of critical naming infrastructure.
  
  
• To communicate on security matters with the Internet technical community and the operators and managers of critical DNS infrastructure services, to include the root name server operator community, the top-level domain registries and registrars, the operators of the reverse delegation trees such as in-addr.arpa and ip6.arpa, and others as events and developments dictate. The Committee will gather and articulate requirements to offer to those engaged in technical revision of the protocols related to DNS and address allocation and those engaged in operations planning.
  
  
• To engage in ongoing threat assessment and risk analysis of the Internet naming and address allocation services to assess where the principal threats to stability and security lie, and to advise the ICANN community accordingly. The Committee will recommend any necessary audit activity to assess the current status of DNS and address allocation security in relation to identified risks and threats.
  
  
• To communicate with those who have direct responsibility for Internet naming and address allocation security matters (IETF, RSSAC, RIRs, name registries, etc.), to ensure that its advice on security risks, issues, and priorities is properly synchronized with existing standardization, deployment, operational, and coordination activities. The Committee will monitor these activities and inform the ICANN community and Board on their progress, as appropriate.
  
  
• To report periodically to the Board on its activities.
  
  
• To make policy recommendations to the ICANN community and Board.

Future Status of Committee

Once the ICANN Board approves the charter of the Security Committee, the next step will be to fomally complete the committee's membership with the expectation that the Security Committee will be converted to a formal ICANN advisory committee.

Page Updated 07-Mar-2002
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