SSAC Members

Rod Rasmussen is a retired cybersecurity executive who, while investing in and advising start-ups, is spending the bulk of his work time volunteering for cybersecurity related organizations. This includes membership in ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) [Chair 2018-2023], contributing as a Senior Advisor to the Messaging Malware Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG), serving as a member of the leadership of the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) and participating in numerous other industry organizations. Rasmussen provides occasional consulting and expert witness services via R2 Cyber, where he is the principal.

Prior to retirement, Rasmussen co-founded the cybersecurity company IID and was the company's CTO prior to its acquisition in 2016. He has been widely recognized as a leading expert on the abuse of the domain name system by criminals. Rasmussen is also an active participant in and the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST). He is a regular participant in DNS-OARC meetings, the worldwide organization for major DNS operators, registries and interested parties. He is also a long-standing member of the Advisory Board for the School of Engineering and Technology at the University of Washington Tacoma. Rasmussen earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley and holds two bachelor's degrees, in Economics and Computer Science, from the University of Rochester. He has worked in both government (the Congressional Budget Office) and various computer communications and networking companies throughout his career.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s). Self-employed (but mostly retired) R2 Cyber - Principal
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above. Occasional consulting and expert witness services
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary. I am on the corporate board and am an investor in CleanDNS, a company that provides services to mitigate DNS Abuse who customers in the domain registration industry, cybersecurity industry and may do work for ICANN from time to time, I am a member of the Board of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry organization that ICANN is a member of, and who occasionally sends advice to the ICANN Board in matters related to cybersecurity and e-crime.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN. CleanDNS as mentioned in prior question.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years. None
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

Raffaele is an Assistant Professor at the University of Twente, where his research focuses on Internet resilience and stability. During his PhD, he specialized in DNS resilience, which involved analyzing and characterizing DDoS attacks, investigating infrastructure vulnerabilities, and both quantifying and devising new countermeasures. Building on this expertise, his current research focuses on enhancing transparency in the DNS ecosystem to proactively prevent abuse and malicious behavior.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s). University of Twente.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above. Teaching and Research in Internet Resilience and Cyber Security.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary. I am part of the .eu multi stakeholders group as representative of University of Twente and I am currently serving in the OARC TPC committee.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN. I am the PI of "The DNS Atlas: Assessing Internet Dependency at Scale", a 500K$ project awarded to the University of Twente and funded by the ICANN Grant Program.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years. I am the PI of "The DNS Atlas: Assessing Internet Dependency at Scale", a 500K$ project awarded to the University of Twente and funded by the ICANN Grant Program.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? No.
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob is a security engineering leader and currently serves as Director of Security,Stability and Resiliency at ICANN, where she leads efforts to embed security by design across critical internet infrastructure. With over 15 years of experience at the intersection of internet infrastructure, Web security, and threat intelligence and Data driven security (Machine learning, Analytics & Artificial Intelligence), her work spans multiple domains including abuse mitigation, secure DNS operations, data-driven security systems, and the design of scalable threat detection architectures.

Tajalizadehkhoob is responsible for driving strategic security initiatives, leading cross-functional engineering  and scientist teams, and supporting research-backed approaches to protecting global-scale platforms. She has led the development of critical rule evaluation engines, DNS abuse detection pipelines, and the integration of security insights into product design and policy enforcement.

Prior to her leadership roles in industry, Tajalizadehkhoob conducted applied research focused on internet measurement, malicious behavior in the DNS ecosystem, and the misuse of digital infrastructures. Her work has contributed to cross-industry initiatives on systemic abuse prevention and operational security improvement.

Tajalizadehkhoob has held influential positions across major internet infrastructure and security organizations, including the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) and NLnet Labs. She has also collaborated with global coordination bodies such as FIRST, M3AAWG, and RIPE, contributing to efforts around abuse reporting standards, threat modeling, and internet resiliency.

She holds a Ph.D. in Information Security and Data Analytics and a Master’s degree in Computer Science. She has authored peer-reviewed publications in top-tier security venues and regularly engages with academia and policymakers to translate technical insights into practical security outcomes. She is also a recognized speaker and mentor in international internet and security forums.

Disclosure of Interest

1. 1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s).
      1. a. ICANN - Director Security Stability and Resiliency Research
   2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above.
      1. a. Research work related to the group topic
      2. b. Community engagement and providing SME
   3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary.\
      1. a. None
   4.  Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN.
      1. a. None
   5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years.
      1. a. Apart from being ICANN org staff, None
   6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer “yes” or “no.” If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).
      1. a. Yes subject to me being part of OCTO, ICANN staff

Matt Thomas is a Fellow in Verisign's chief security officer (CSO) applied research division. His research focuses on numerous aspects of internet security, stability and resiliency including but not limited to DDoS attacks, domain name abuse, miscreant behavior within the Domain Name System (DNS), and large-scale measurements and evolving trends in internet architectures.

Thomas is responsible for supporting an array of activities across the company including data-driven analytical functions for Verisign's value-added services, supporting internal research initiatives, external engagement, and supporting critical data analysis efforts. Thomas has more than 15 years of experience working with large, distributed data collection and analysis systems.

Prior to joining Verisign in 2008, Thomas worked as a software engineer at AT&T. He was responsible for designing and implementing a distributed data collection system that measured and analyzed the operational performance of systems and services hosted by AT&T throughout the world.

Thomas earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science and Master of Science in information systems and technology from The Johns Hopkins University. He has authored more than 10 peer-reviewed publications and he has been awarded 11 patents from the USPTO. He is in good standing as a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Hadoop Developer (CDH).

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s). VeriSign Inc, Dist. Eng.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above. I am responsible for supporting an array of activities across the company including data-driven analytical functions for Verisign's services, conducting research initiatives, external engagement with the DNS community, and executing Verisign's security, stability, and resiliency projects.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary. I have served on M3AAWG's (the Messaging, Malware, Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group) board of directors since 2017.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN. Verisign is my sole employer. Verisign is a contracted party with ICANN. No immediate family member and/or significant others have any financial or other Interest in ICANN including any ICANN policy, program, process, or anything related to ICANN or the ICANN community.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years. Verisign, my employer, is a registry operator for .com and other gTLDs and is the root zone maintainer on behalf of ICANN (or its subcontractor) for the IANA root. As such, Verisign, and ICANN (or its subcontractor) engage in business transactions via registry agreements, a letter of intent, and the root zone maintainer services agreement. Some of these agreements have been amended, renewed, or entered into within the last 5 years.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

Peter Thomassen is the founder and Chief Technology Officer of deSEC, a free, managed DNSSEC hosting platform. It is deSEC's mission to enhance the security of online data transmission, by spreading the seamless use of state-of-the-art encryption technology. He is also a Managing Director at SSE Secure Systems Engineering, a German IT Security Consultancy.

Peter has 20+ years of experience in the Internet and security industry, starting out with his web hosting company a4a (founded 2001) and later serving as an early CTO for the not-for-profit dotHIV TLD registry (2013). In 2014, Peter founded deSEC, and in 2018, he joined SSE as a Senior Security Expert and later Senior Solutions Architect in software development projects from various enterprise and public sector industries. He is an active member of the IETF with contributions to various working groups that have overlap with the DNS. He has presented on related topics at ICANN, IETF, RIPE, and DNS OARC conferences as well as the CA/B Forum. His main interests lie with security concepts that are deployable on large scale and relate to communications privacy, the key exchange problem, and efficient DNSSEC automation.

 

Disclosure of Interest

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): a) SSE – Secure Systems Engineering GmbH: Senior Solution Architect IT Security Consultancy / Engineering company  b) deSEC e.V.: Founder / Board member  Managed DNS hosting platform with DNSSEC out of the box  Secure communications protocol development  c) a4a GmbH: Founder, CEO  Web hosting, e-mail
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: a) Advising clients about their (e.g. cloud) security posture, developing enterprise security concepts, supporting clients’ development teams b) Software development, protocol development; board duties  c) Systems administration, executive duties
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: Member of Internet Namespace Security Observatory (INSO) Advisory Committee
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN: deSEC e.V. is a grantee of the ICANN Grant Program (2024 round)
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: My employer (deSEC e.V.) entered into a grant agreement with ICANN (2024 Grant Program) in April 2025
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

Laurin B. Weissinger serves as Principal Consultant on matters AI and security at Confisio Consulting and teaches Information and IT Security at the Department of Computer Science, Tufts University. He is also a visiting fellow at Yale Law School. Laurin serves as a Research Fellow at APWG and an Expert Advisor to M3AAWG, while being a member the “Digital Trust” group at ISACA Germany and the FIRST Human Factors, DNS Abuse, and AI SIGs. Laurin has completed his DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford, and holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Birmingham, along various industry certifications in security and privacy. Laurin’s main focus areas are DNS abuse, trustworthy and secure AI, security policy, and abuse in complex, distributed systems.

 

Disclosure of Interest

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s).

          Principal Consultant, Confisio Consulting

          Department of Computer Science, Tufts University, Visiting Scholar

          School of Information, UC Berkeley, Lecturer

2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above.

         1. Consulting on: Security governance, Hardening, Security Management, Third Party Assessments, Audits

          2. and 3. Teaching and Research regarding IT and information security

3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary.

          Expert Advisor to M3AAWG,

          APWG Fellow and Conference Program Chair

          Individual FIRST member

4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN.

          No

      5.Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had                 with ICANN within the last 5 years.

         No

6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)?

         No

7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

 

 

Rick Wilhelm is the Chief Technology Officer at Public Interest Registry, the operators of .org and other mission-driven TLDs, where he is responsible for Registry Operations & Support, Data Analytics, Technical Policy, and IT & Security Operations.  Rick has extensive background in domain name infrastructure, cloud-based SaaS, enterprise IT, and policy and consulting.  Prior to joining PIR, Rick served as Verisign’s Vice President of (Registry) Platform Management.  He also spent over a decade serving in executive positions for Network Solutions and Neustar, where he was the principal architect of the company’s first gTLD registry and led the technical launch of .biz, the subsequent transition and relaunch of .us, and other technical milestones.

Rick has served in a variety of roles at ICANN, including present activity as Vice-Chair of the Customer Standing Committee, member of the Second IANA Function Review, member of the (first) IANA Function Review, member of the GNSO Transfer Policy Review PDP Working Group, RDAP Working Group chair, the Registry Stakeholder Group, and various other contributions.  Rick is also active at IETF, M3AAWG, CENTR, and other related industry fora.

Disclosure of Interest

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s).

Public Interest Registry, Chief Technology Officer

2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above.

Responsible for PIR's technology strategy and operations, along with technical policy.

3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary.

None.

4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN.

My employer operates .ORG and other gTLDs under contract to ICANN.

5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years.

See above regarding the contractual relationships between ICANN and my employer.

6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)?

No

7. Please answer “yes” or “no.” If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

 

 

Suzanne Woolf is experienced in both the technical and policy aspects of the evolution of the Internet, particularly DNS and other network operations. She has held a variety of roles in technical strategy and policy, product management, software engineering management, and related areas for employers and consulting clients including University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute, ICANN, Internet Systems Consortium, and several TLD registries. At present, she is a fulltime employee of Public Interest Registry (PIR), the operator of .ORG and several other TLDs.

Suzanne's current networking interests center on large scale infrastructure, Internet security, and the evolution of DNS.

In addition to membership in SSAC, Suzanne currently serves as a co-chair of the DNSOP working group of the IETF. She has also served on the Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC) as a member and as liaison to the ICANN Board; the Internet Architecture Board; the corporate boards of DNS-OARC and PIR; and the ARIN Advisory Council.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): I am Senior Director, Technical Community Outreach, for Public Interest Registry, Inc. PIR is the operator of .ORG, one of the oldest and largest gTLDs, and several other smaller gTLDs, including IDNs. PIR is a 501(c)(3) US non-profit membership organization, whose sole member is the Internet Society, a 501(c)(3) devoted to advocating for the open Internet.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: I am Senior Director, Technical Community Outreach, for Public Interest Registry, Inc. PIR is the operator of .ORG, one of the oldest and largest gTLDs, and several other smaller gTLDs, including IDNs. PIR is a 501(c)(3) US non-profit membership organization, whose sole member is the Internet Society, a 501(c)(3) devoted to advocating for the open Internet.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary:  I'm on the program committee of DNS-OARC (http://www.dns-oarc.net). I'm currently co-chair of the DNS Operations Working Group in the IETF. I'm a long-time member and the original convener of the RSSAC. I've been a board or advisory council member of ARIN, the IETF (as a member of the IAB), ICANN, PIR, and DNS-OARC. None of these organizations attempts to influence my views specifically with regards to issues before SSAC, but I've maintained ties with all of them and they all influence my views.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN: My employer operates .ORG and its other gTLDs under contract to ICANN. The PIR RA is the generic RA that the other gTLD operators have also agreed to. In addition, PIR is contracted with ICANN-accredited registrars under the Registry-Registrar Agreement, a generic contract negotiated among ICANN, the registries, and the registrars.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: See above on contractual relationships between ICANN org and my employer.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? No
7. If the answer to #7 is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).