Glitch redux: ICANN screws up new gTLD security again
No lessons learned from 2012? ICANN admitted this morning that a glitch in its Registry Service Provider Evaluation Program exposed the identities of more than a dozen companies to their rivals.
The Org fessed up that some companies looking to get pre-approved as RSPs were able to see “identifiable organizational information” belonging to another user when using ICANN’s technical testing system.
“A total of 14 of 26 organizations using RST OT&E were affected. All affected organizations have been notified,” ICANN said. “No personal data was exposed, with the exception of a single minor and limited instance.”
It doesn’t sound like any gTLD application intentions were revealed — that part of the program doesn’t open until next year.
There were probably not too many surprises among the leaks. The landscape of the RSP market is well understood.
The only exceptions that spring to mind would be ccTLD registries that have not yet revealed their plans for the gTLD space, and completely new market entrants that have not yet tipped their hand.
The glitch sounds remarkable familiar for ICANN watchers with long memories. A bug discovered in 2015, which exposed much more data, and about applicants themselves, but it was only exploited by one person on a handful of occasions.
That “glitch” led to allegations of hacking and trade secret theft and a long-running Independent Review Process case that wasn’t resolved until October 2023.
ICANN said it has taken down its testing environment to fix the bug and has hired an outside consultant to kick the tires.
This delay means testing will be offline for around two weeks, coming back November 12 at the earliest, and the reveal date for the list of participating RSPs has been pushed back from December 9 to an unspecified future date we realistically have to assume will be in the new year.
It’s not expected to delay the April 2026 opening of the next application round.
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