Community Grant Program Recipients

2024 ARIN Community Grant Program Recipients

Project summaries provided by grant recipients.

Exploring Potential Use Cases of RPKI Signed Checklist (RSC) Under RFC 9323

Internet Society
Reston, Virginia
Grant amount: US$20,000

The Internet Society’s project, Exploring Potential Use Cases of RPKI Signed Checklist (RSC) Under RFC 9323, addresses the challenge of integrating RPKI Signed Checklists (RSC) to enhance the authenticity and security of digital transactions related to Internet Number Resources. Our proposed project includes the following:

• Planned Activities Study RFC 9323: Conduct a thorough review of RFC 9323 and related drafts/RFCs to fully understand the technical specifications and the framework it establishes for RPKI Signed Checklists (RSC).
• Use Cases Identification: Identify and document a range of potential use cases for RSC across various sectors. This will involve exploring how RSC can enhance Internet security protocols, prevent fraud, and support digital transactions related to routing.
• Impact Assessment: Evaluate the potential impact of these use cases on enhancing trust and security in the management of Internet Number Resources. This assessment will also identify any gaps or vulnerabilities in the current framework that might limit the effectiveness of RSC.
• Meetings with NRO/RIRs: Organize meetings with representatives from the Number Resource Organization (NRO)/ Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) to discuss the operational aspects of RSC. The goal is to explore their current capabilities and readiness to support RSC implementations.
• Feedback: Use these meetings to solicit feedback on the proposed use cases and to foster consensus on the best approaches for RSC implementation. These discussions will also identify any policy adjustments or infrastructure enhancements needed to support RSC.
• Community Engagement: Extend engagement to select community members who are involved in this space to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the RSC landscape and its implications.
• Expected Outcomes Detailed Analysis: A detailed analysis of RSC technology as outlined in RFC 9323, exploring the technical mechanisms, security enhancements, and potential issues around its governance and sustainability (if any).
• Use Cases: Identify and document potential use cases for RSCs within various sectors, including but not limited to, Internet routing. This will involve examining scenarios where RSCs can uniquely address security and trust issues.

Roadmap for ISOC’s Involvement:

• What’s Next: Create a framework outlining how ISOC can lead or support the integration of RSC into the broader Internet security landscape. This will include potential partnerships, advocacy plans, and involvement in standard-setting initiatives.
• Project/Initiative: Propose specific project or initiatives that can leverage RSC technology, aligning with existing projects or initiative or suggesting new projects that could be launched under ISOC’s umbrella. As noted in further detail below, the project’s outcomes directly benefit Internet resource holders, RIRs, NRO, and the technical community while indirectly benefiting Internet Society members, general Internet users, and the broader Internet industry.

The project improves the overall Internet industry and Internet user environment by:

• Enhancing Security: By integrating RSC, the project enhances the authenticity and security of digital transactions related to Internet Number Resources, reducing the risk of fraud and unauthorized resource usage.
• Improving Reliability: Through stakeholder engagement and development of best practices, the project strengthens the resilience of global routing and Internet infrastructure, benefiting all users who rely on a stable and trustworthy Internet.
• Supporting Community and Standards Advancement: The project fosters stakeholder collaboration, leading to consensus-building on RSC adoption and potential contributions to industry standards, thereby elevating overall Internet security practices

Mitigating Internet Abuse Through IP Addresses: A Data-based Analysis

DNS Research Federation
Oxford, United Kingdom
Grant amount: US$20,000

When discussing Internet abuse, we often think of DNS abuse. However, numbering resources are also misused in cybercrime. The DNSRF has conducted some preliminary research on how IP addresses and ASNs are used to facilitate phishing and ransomware attacks with URLs directly using numbering resources. Specifically, through our blog entitled “Use of Subdomain Providers Gains Popularity as a Mechanism to Launch Phishing Attacks,” (August 2023), we found that when it comes to malware attacks, most malware URLs avoid using domain names and use a raw IP address directly.

The proposed project seeks to shed light on this issue by developing live indicators that provide information about how numbering resources are misused in phishing and malware attacks. Our end goal is to raise awareness of this issue among network operators and incident response teams to enable informed action. Specifically, we propose to:

1. Work on the development of the live indicators. These will tentatively include:

   • (a) Prevalence of IP address use in phishing. Percentage of reported phishing URLs directly use IP addresses.
   • (b) Prevalence of IP address use in malware. Percentage of reported malware URLs directly use IP addresses.
   • (c) Autonomous System Analysis Geographic. Prevalence of numbering abuse per RIR, top 10 countries leading misuse of IP addresses for phishing/malware, top 5 countries per RIR.

2. Develop an online report presenting the live indicators; and

3. Conduct five presentations at two ARIN events, one NANOG event, and one FIRST Meeting.

With the project, we hope to: (a) provide up-to-date data analysis on Internet abuse that relies on numbering resources; and (b) contribute to the stability, security, and robustness of the Internet by providing evidence for the Internet’s technical community to take action.