Research on SIDN's ancillary activities in relation to risks and continuity of the .nl domain

The .nl domain, given its size and usage, plays an important role in Dutch society. This societal importance was the reason for the covenant on safeguarding the .nl domain, concluded between the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (EZK) and SIDN in 2008 (and extended in 2015). With the introduction of the Network and Information Systems Security Act (Wbni) in 2018, SIDN was designated as a provider of essential services, and the Radiocommunications Agency (now RDI) specifically ensures that SIDN takes appropriate and proportionate technical and organisational measures to secure its ICT systems and thereby safeguard the stability of the .nl domain. From its role, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (EZK) has a primary interest in the continuity and stability of the .nl domain. Any risky ancillary activities of SIDN could have a negative impact on this. For this reason, EZK commissioned the current study.

Ancillary activities of SIDN

SIDN carries out various activities alongside managing the .nl domain. These activities (in order of significance) primarily include the SIDN Fund, SIDN Labs (research), activities related to IRMA, Cybersterk, and the Domain Monitoring Service. While ancillary activities conducted by SIDN alongside managing the .nl domain could lead to additional risks, particularly through the risk chains identified in this study, we note that SIDN has implemented mitigating measures on all these risk chains (specifically the cause-and-effect relationships influenced by SIDN). The study results in a number of recommendations to further safeguard these mitigating measures.