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IANA Root Zone Management System Password Reset

2 March 2026
By
John Crain

John Crain

SVP & Chief Technology Officer

John is responsible for leading ICANN organization (org)’s efforts to improve knowledge about the identifiers ICANN helps coordinate and disseminate this information to the Internet community. He is also responsible for oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions.

A member of the org executive team, John works with staff and the community to enable and enhance capabilities that improve the overall security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet’s identifier systems and associated infrastructures. He also represents ICANN in operational and technical dialogues and forums to ensure the community’s engagement with these programs.

Prior to his time at ICANN org, John worked as part of the executive management team at RIPE NCC in Amsterdam. RIPE NCC is the regional Internet registry (RIR) that provides Internet resource allocations for Europe and surrounding areas. John has been directly involved in the administration of Internet identifiers since his start at RIPE NCC in 1995 and has worked in all areas of Internet Protocol (IP) address administration. John also has extensive experience in Domain Name System (DNS) administration and managing Internet infrastructure services. Before becoming involved in Internet administration, John worked as a design engineer in composite materials research and development. In that role, John was also responsible for local area networking of computer aided design systems and for writing and developing custom software applications.

On Saturday, 28 February 2026, all IANA Root Zone Management System (RZMS) users were notified by IANA to reset their passwords.

During a system review, we identified an anomaly within certain internal logging functions for the RZMS that involved credential-related data. The underlying logging issue has been addressed, and additional safeguards have been implemented.

At this time, there is no indication of unauthorized access to the RZMS or logs. Consistent with best practices, and to ensure continued secure access for all users, ICANN required all RZMS users to reset their passwords.

The safety and security of our systems and our users is of the utmost importance. There are many additional safeguards in the root zone management process to prevent unauthorized changes to the root zone.

We apologize for this inconvenience.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions.

Authors

John Crain

John Crain

SVP & Chief Technology Officer
John Crain

John Crain

SVP & Chief Technology Officer

John is responsible for leading ICANN organization (org)’s efforts to improve knowledge about the identifiers ICANN helps coordinate and disseminate this information to the Internet community. He is also responsible for oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions.

A member of the org executive team, John works with staff and the community to enable and enhance capabilities that improve the overall security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet’s identifier systems and associated infrastructures. He also represents ICANN in operational and technical dialogues and forums to ensure the community’s engagement with these programs.

Prior to his time at ICANN org, John worked as part of the executive management team at RIPE NCC in Amsterdam. RIPE NCC is the regional Internet registry (RIR) that provides Internet resource allocations for Europe and surrounding areas. John has been directly involved in the administration of Internet identifiers since his start at RIPE NCC in 1995 and has worked in all areas of Internet Protocol (IP) address administration. John also has extensive experience in Domain Name System (DNS) administration and managing Internet infrastructure services. Before becoming involved in Internet administration, John worked as a design engineer in composite materials research and development. In that role, John was also responsible for local area networking of computer aided design systems and for writing and developing custom software applications.

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