NCC Group claims to be the world’s largest provider of Enterprise Risk Management solutions, and they are especially well known in ICANN circles as a leading Data Escrow provider. Their data escrow division became their largest business in terms of both revenue and profits after Rob Cotton was brought in as Finance Director in 2000. He also led the company through its opening on the London Stock Exchange, and led a secondary management buy-out and was appointed as Chief Executive of NCC Group Limited.[1]

Type: Publicly Traded
Industry: Data Escrow, IT Security,
Enterprise Risk Management
Founded: 1999
Headquarters: 1731 Technology Drive,
Suite 880, San Jose, CA 95110
Country: USA
Employees: 501 - 1,000
Website: NCCGroup.us
LinkedIn: Profile
Key People
Rob Cotton, CEO
Craig Motta, VP
Tom Scopazzi, Registry Services Manager

NCC Group is uniquely positioned to provide escrow registry services and a variety of risk management solutions to all registry operators, and new gTLD applicants.

Industry Involvement

One of the requirements built into ICANN's new gTLD program is the daily transfer of Whois data to a reputable escrow agent. This has to be performed by a third-party provider in a transparent manner to protect against registry failure and other contingency situations.[2] NCC Group is not new to the ICANN community, and has been working in the domain name industry since 2008, when it assisted ICANN with the development of the gTLD Registry Failover Plan. It has since become a registry escrow provider for a number of registries and registrars. It is the only escrow provider with major operations in Europe and North America, and is compliant with US and EU law.[3]

In 2008, NCC Group announced that it had been chosen by RegistryPro to act as its daily data escrow provider. The agreement was finalized in January 2008, and NCC Group provides all necessary data safety and security services mandated by ICANN's data escrow requirements for registry operators. [4]

Minds + Machines has teamed up to work with NCC Group with all new gTLD applicants selecting their registry and consultancy services. Minds + Machines promises to act as intercessor between their clients and NCC Group.[5]

Key-Systems has selected NCC Group as one of the preferred partners for registry data escrow services for applicants that have selected KSregistry as their new gTLD operating platform.

In 2013, NCC Group was approved by ICANN to provide data escrow services to new gTLD clients.[6]

Technical Capabilities

  • NCC Group's Registry Data Escrow program is based on our Escrow Live service.
  • NCC Group utilizes a fully redundant infrastructure with four globally dispersed Tier III+ data centers, ensuring business continuity and no single point of failure.
  • Whois data is deposited daily via an encrypted, secure FTP transmission. The file transfer process automatically triggers data decompression and decryption, and then generates an automated email confirming the receipt of the deposit.
  • All transactions are logged in a secure database for auditing purposes to support ICANN's compliance requirements.

Independent IT Security Advisor

Since its founding, NCC Group has also a full-service application, infrastructure, and mobile security consulting company. It has consulted for federal governments and Fortune 50 clientele regarding all forms of penetration testing and vulnerability assessments.[7]

References