Logo
ICANN
ICANN
Filtered Search

Are you sure you want to sign out from http://www.icann.org?

If you want to sign out from both http://www.icann.org and ICANN Account, click here.

ICANN Blogs

Read ICANN Blogs to stay informed of the latest policymaking activities, regional events, and more.

A New ICANN Project to Measure Metadata on Domain Names

28 February 2024
By

Siôn Lloyd

Principal Security, Stability & Resiliency Specialist

Siôn Lloyd joined ICANN in January 2020 and currently serves the organization as a Lead Security, Stability, Resiliency Specialist.

 and
Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob

Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob

Director, Security, Stability and Resiliency Research

Samaneh is a reporting to John Crain, Chief Security, Stability & Resiliency Officer and is part of the Office of CTO (OCTO) group. She is based in ICANN’s Europe Region and will be working remotely from the Netherlands. As the SSR Specialist, Samaneh works in close coordination with other ICANN organization functions to implement ICANN’s Security, Stability and Resiliency strategies. Samaneh carries out research on DNS security and abuse. She also represents ICANN on matters relating to the SSR of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers within ICANN’s remit as well as helping to develop technical work, positions and produce materials related to the administration of those identifiers from an SSR perspective.

Samaneh is from a multi-disciplinary background. While she is an Electronics Engineer by training, she studied Engineering and Policy Analysis for her masters. She holds a PhD degree in Internet Security and Data Analytics from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. She worked as a Post-Doctoral researcher at the same university where she did research on banking security and underground markets utilizing advanced statistical techniques and machine learning.

She has collaborated with other research teams as a visiting scholar; at KU Leuven, DistriNet Research Group she worked on Internet measurements to estimate web vulnerabilities and measure patching practices of hosting servers. Additionally, she worked with scholars from the security and privacy lab at University of Innsbruck on designing abuse metrics that can reliably measure security performance of Internet identifiers.

Samaneh has authored publications on web security, cyber security, Internet measurements, underground economy, and development of security metrics design using advance statistical methods.

Samaneh speaks English, Farsi, Dutch and has basic knowledge in Arabic. She is a big fan of board games. In her free time, she runs, plays tennis, and piano.

 

The logo of the new project ICANN Domain Metrica.

We are excited to share a new project and platform called "ICANN Domain Metrica."

Six years ago, ICANN launched the Domain Abuse Activity Reporting (DAAR) system. It was intended to stimulate discussion around Domain Name System (DNS) abuse and serve as a reliable and reproducible measurement methodology to help registrar and registry operators to monitor DNS abuse. Today, both our internal and the community's needs for the DAAR system have outgrown what it is ably providing.

This is a challenging, but exciting time for our project team. The goal is to create a system that does a lot more with the data we have available; it forms a new framework and a measurement platform that meets our needs and the needs of our wider community. In addition, it will become the place to demonstrate the application of the research we are carrying out and publishing at ICANN and in academia.

We are building this system completely from the ground up. ICANN Domain Metrica is designed to be modular, extensible, and transparent. It will grow over time with new data points on domain names, as we incorporate new data sources and the output of our research.

This new system will provide a place to store, combine, and compare any metadata related to domain names. To begin with, the first module will include aggregated and non-aggregated data on DNS abuse concentrations as listed on a set of Reputation Block Lists (RBLs), similar to what DAAR had, but this time for both registrars and registries. This should give users access to more detailed and relevant information about DNS abuse concentration patterns. The abuse types we will be tracking are phishing, malware, spam as a delivery mechanism, and command and control domains.

Secondly, the platform will have a dynamic dashboard with relevant statistics and visuals. We are developing the capability to share relevant data with relevant parties: that is, the partial list of domains listed on RBLs (within the limits of our data sharing agreements and licenses). The idea is to help our community see some of the underlying data behind the visuals and aggregated statistics that we will be making available on the ICANN Domain Metrica dashboard.

Finally, as we've mentioned above, this new system will be a modular platform. For now, there is one module in it.

We have been working on the first module of ICANN Domain Metrica and are planning to launch it in the third quarter of 2024. I am pleased to announce that this module is led by Dr. Siôn Lloyd, from my team. In the beginning, ICANN Domain Metrica will run in parallel with the DAAR system until we are satisfied that all the current functionality is available. From then on, ICANN Domain Metrica will not stand frozen in time, but will evolve with additional modules and features.

Please keep an eye out for further updates on this project from the Security, Stability, and Resiliency team at the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. More detailed information on ICANN Domain Metrica is going to be presented by Dr. Siôn Lloyd at the ICANN79 Tech Day session.

Authors

Siôn Lloyd

Principal Security, Stability & Resiliency Specialist

Siôn Lloyd

Principal Security, Stability & Resiliency Specialist

Siôn Lloyd joined ICANN in January 2020 and currently serves the organization as a Lead Security, Stability, Resiliency Specialist.

Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob

Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob

Director, Security, Stability and Resiliency Research
Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob

Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob

Director, Security, Stability and Resiliency Research

Samaneh is a reporting to John Crain, Chief Security, Stability & Resiliency Officer and is part of the Office of CTO (OCTO) group. She is based in ICANN’s Europe Region and will be working remotely from the Netherlands. As the SSR Specialist, Samaneh works in close coordination with other ICANN organization functions to implement ICANN’s Security, Stability and Resiliency strategies. Samaneh carries out research on DNS security and abuse. She also represents ICANN on matters relating to the SSR of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers within ICANN’s remit as well as helping to develop technical work, positions and produce materials related to the administration of those identifiers from an SSR perspective.

Samaneh is from a multi-disciplinary background. While she is an Electronics Engineer by training, she studied Engineering and Policy Analysis for her masters. She holds a PhD degree in Internet Security and Data Analytics from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. She worked as a Post-Doctoral researcher at the same university where she did research on banking security and underground markets utilizing advanced statistical techniques and machine learning.

She has collaborated with other research teams as a visiting scholar; at KU Leuven, DistriNet Research Group she worked on Internet measurements to estimate web vulnerabilities and measure patching practices of hosting servers. Additionally, she worked with scholars from the security and privacy lab at University of Innsbruck on designing abuse metrics that can reliably measure security performance of Internet identifiers.

Samaneh has authored publications on web security, cyber security, Internet measurements, underground economy, and development of security metrics design using advance statistical methods.

Samaneh speaks English, Farsi, Dutch and has basic knowledge in Arabic. She is a big fan of board games. In her free time, she runs, plays tennis, and piano.

 

You May Also Like