DNSAI Newsletter November 2022

DNSAI Compass

We launched our DNS Abuse Intelligence initiative in September, and we’re now pleased to give it a name: DNSAI Compass. The next iteration of our Compass reporting is now published, and our interactive charts have been updated to include one more month of data. You can also read our full methodology in our first report published in September. Our intention is to establish a credible source of metrics for measuring and addressing DNS Abuse. We hope this will enable focused conversations, and identify opportunities for reducing abuse across the DNS ecosystem. Please contact us if you’d like to learn more. 

NetBeacon 

NetBeacon, our free centralized abuse reporting service went live in June and is successfully routing abuse reports to registrars. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the launch event at ICANN74. A special thank you to Clean DNS and PIR for the support that made this initiative possible. 

We’ve continued to work on the service, we recently made some improvements to the abuse reporting forms, and have included Google Safebrowsing in the report enrichments sent to registrars.

We’re looking to continue expanding usage, so if you are reporting abuse to registrars on a regular basis, we’d love to discuss how to make that easier. 

Registrars and registries are encouraged to create an account to access the full functionality of this service. NetBeacon standardizes the abuse reports you receive and enriches them with useful information, enabling you to make quicker and easier assessments, and helping reduce the effort required to action abusive registrations. 

Creating an account means you can: 

• Customize the information included in these reports,
• Customize the email addresses they are sent to or consume abuse reports via API, 
• Embed NetBeacon abuse reporting forms on your site,
• Label recurring abuse reporters for easy triage.

A NetBeacon account is completely free to a registrar and by making an account, you’ll get the maximum functionality and customisation for your abuse reports. 

Publications

Best Practices 

In collaboration with the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network we’ve put together a Generic Abuse Policy for Registrars and Registries, which is free to use and customize. We’ve also published guidance on Abuse Reporter Expectation Management.

First-Ever Annual Report

We’re proud to have published our first ever Annual Report, detailing our work over the first year in operation. The Report captures activities and objectives met during the time period of February 2021 to March 2022.

DNSAI in the news 

OECD Policy Paper

We recently contributed to a policy paper produced by the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation on security of the DNS. The paper, Security of the Domain Name System (DNS) – An introduction for policy makers, is now available online.

Explain to Shane: Combating the Problem of Domain Name Abuse 

On this episode, Shane Tews sits down with Graeme Bunton, the inaugural director of the DNSAI. The interview covers the Institute’s partnership with CleanDNS to create NetBeacon—a free DNS abuse reporting service. Graeme gives his perspective on the issue of DNS abuse and explains why tools like NetBeacon are necessary in today’s DNS landscape.

APNIC: Tackling DNS abuse through education, collaboration and innovation

The Institute recently published a guest blog for the Regional Internet Registry administering IP addresses for the Asia Pacific on some practical tips for tackling DNS Abuse: (1) Have an abuse policy; (2) Understand the difference between malicious and compromised; and (3) Secure your website and help others do the same

Upcoming Events

CPH Summit

The DNSAI will be leading a number of sessions at the upcoming Contracted Party Summit in Los Angeles. For domain registrars and registries, we’ll be digging into issues with reputation block lists, AGP limits, and architecting registration flows to reduce abuse.  Note that these  sessions are likely to be closed to contracted parties only. 

UN Internet Governance Forum 2022

The Institute will be participating in two sessions at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (UN IGF) 2022 on 30th November 2022. We are moderating a panel session alongside Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network on strengthening multi-stakeholder collaboration on DNS Abuse (Wednesday, 30th November 2022 06:30 UTC). We are also presenting our own lightning talk on the work of the DNSAI (Wednesday, 30th November 2022, 08:00 UTC).