Security and Stability Advisory Committee

The Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) advises the ICANN Board on matters related to the security and integrity of domain names and the allocation of IP addresses, including but not limited to security assurance for operational matters, administrative matters and registrations matters.

SSAC History

During the ICANN meeting from November 2001, the ICANN Board asked the Board President to assign a President for "security and stability of the Internet's naming and address allocation system" which has the responsibility to create a in-depth analysis of the risks and threats. In May 13 year 2002 the President of the committee for security and stability was converted to the President of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC).

There are currently 35 members of SSAC, with Patrik Faltstrom as the Chair. Others include:

• Greg Aaron
• Joe Abley
• Jaap Akkerhuis
• Benedict Addis
• Jeffrey Bedser
• Don Blumenthal
• Ben Butler
• Lyman Chapin
• KC Claffy
• Steve Crocker
• Jay Daley
• Andrew de la Haije
• Paul Ebersman
• Patrik Fältström
• Ondrej Filip
• James Galvin
• Robert Guerra
• Julie Hammer
• Cristian Hesselman
• Geoff Huston
• Merike Kaeo
• Mark Kosters
• Warren Kumari
• Jacques Latour
• Xiaodong Lee
• John R. Levine
• Carlos Martinez Cagnazzo
• Danny McPherson
• Ram Mohan
• Russ Mundy
• Rod Rasmussen
• Mark Seiden
• Doron Shikmoni
• Tara Whalen
• Suzanne Woolf
  

SSAC Support Staff

Support for the committee is provided by:

• Julie Hedlund, Director, SSAC Support
• Andrew McConachie, Technical and Policy Specialist
• Kathy Schnitt, Secretariat Operations Coordinator for RSSAC and SSAC
• Steve Sheng, Senior Technical Analyst

How does SSAC work?

SSAC conducts ongoing threat assessment and risk analysis for Internet allocation services to determine which are viable threats and how these threats could influence the stability of the Internet. SSAC advises the ICANN community based on the results of these assessments.

In order to fulfill its objective to advise ICANN, SSAC develops comments, reports and advisories on the issues which may concern the Internet community.

• Reports are documents which contain substantive information and are developed in a few months' time. The reports represent a well-structured and in-depth analysis concerning a specific topic or issue, and includes recommendations for ICANN.
• Comments are the responses received based on the reports created by ICANN groups or other eligible organizations. These comments are usually supplied to public calls.
• Advisories are concise documents containing useful and clear advice for ICANN and the Internet community. The advisories supply recommendations and solutions for problems and ways to reduce risks and threats.

The SSAC produces Reports, Advisories, and Comments on a range of topics. Reports are longer, substantive documents, which usually take a few or several months to develop. Advisories are shorter documents produced more quickly to provide timely advice to the community. Comments are responses to reports or other documents prepared by others, i.e. ICANN staff, SOs, other ACs, or, perhaps, by other groups outside of ICANN. The SSAC considers matters pertaining to the correct and reliable operation of the root name system, to address allocation and Internet number assignment, and to registry and registrar services such as WHOIS. The SSAC also tracks and assesses threats and risks to the Internet naming and address allocation services.

Security and Stability Advisory Committee. Advises the ICANN community and Board on matters relating to the security and integrity of the Internet's naming and address allocation systems (ICANN Bylaws).

Root Server System Advisory Committee. Advises the ICANN community and Board on matters relating to the operation, administration, security, and integrity of the Internet's Root Server System (ICANN Bylaws).