SSAC Publications

The SSAC produces reports, correspondence, and comments on a range of topics. The SSAC undertakes ongoing risk analysis to identify a prioritized list of topics for SSAC work. However, the ICANN Board, Advisory Committees (ACs), Supporting Organizations (SOs) or other bodies within ICANN may request that the SSAC review, comment, or give feedback on a specific topic or issue at any time.

Reports are focused on providing information, recommendations, and advice on technical security, stability, and resiliency (SSR) issues to the ICANN Board, the ICANN community, and the broader internet community. They may investigate emerging or long-term issues or could be published in response to a security event or incident, where timely notification to the community is a priority concern. They may be informational without any findings or recommendations or they could contain specific recommendations for the ICANN Board or community, and if appropriate, organized according to the groups to which they are most applicable.

Correspondence comprises letters, comments, and other documents on administrative, community, and other non-SSR issues and are normally signed by the SSAC Chair. They may take the form of a letter or a response submitted to a public comment forum. They may present recommendations regarding the issue.

Comments are prepared in response to explicit questions posed to or requests made to the SSAC, or as a response to ICANN’s public comment forum. Comments may be brief or long, depending on the issue and the extent to which the SSAC studies it.

A goal of the SSAC is to ensure that its work results in specific actions whenever possible. In order to measure progress towards this goal, the SSAC tracks any effects of each recommendation. For documents that contain recommendations for the ICANN Board, the Board Action Request Register (ARR) captures the information required to understand the status of advice and tracks it from when it is given through implementation.