IE-Annual-Report-2023

Data analytics and visualisation A consolidated team led to a productive 2023, where the Data Analytics Team, internally known as Xavier, focused on quality of data, making insights visible to internal and external stakeholders, innovating in Cybersecurity and extending the adoption of Predictive Analytics. Data-driven decision-making A great achievement of 2023 was the introduction of data-driven decision making fuelled by the creation of multiple dashboards, sharing visual insights of registry operations, financial data and performance indicators. The dashboards, created using Power BI and adopting a single source of truth, allow other teams in the organisation to quickly get a pulse of the core business of the organisation, leading to good and prompt decision making. Team Xavier continued this progress and in collaboration with the Communications and Marketing Team, we implemented data-driven interventions with some of our Registrars, by early identification of potential domains at risk of non- renewal. This early warning system allowed us to provide timely, relevant analysis so that the Registrar channel can create tailored activation offers to domains that have not been in use. Cybersecurity Improving the adoption of security practices within the Irish Internet ecosystem remains a high priority status for our team. During 2023, our efforts included three initiatives: 1. Domain scorecard: as reported in the Annual Report 2022, we keep showcasing our methodology, tools and results to other peers and to relevant Ireland government departments and National Competent Authorities. We made improvements in quality and data availability, including attractive visual dashboards for stakeholders. With regular collection and reporting, we expect to see improvements in email security. 2. Critical Entities: at the end of 2023 we prepared a data-driven proposal to identify entities critical for the operation of digital Infrastructure in Ireland, using a risk-based approach. Our proposal aims to give better and more granular information to the Irish government when identifying entities that must be covered by NIS2 directives on critical infrastructure protection. 3. Academic Paper on phishing: at the end of 2023 our team joined forces with two other European ccTLDs to prepare and submit an academic paper, analysing detected cases of phishing observed across all three registries. As the paper is currently under review, no more details can be provided. Visualisations The letter “V” in the name XAVIER stands for Visualisation. Most of our efforts were focused on great visual insights for internal consumption, but at the end of 2023 the work to refresh the public-facing domain statistics started. At the time of writing, Phase 1 of that work was completed, with new graphics available at https://weare.ie/domain-stats/. Predictive Analytics In 2023, effort went into building an algorithm for website content classification into industries aligned with NACE codes and another to determine if a domain going into renewal will complete or drop the process. We are expecting to bring these models into normal operations during 2024, to provide our Registrar channel with upselling opportunities and data-driven interventions to increase renewal rates. Reporting and publications Team Xavier understands the value of data analysis, and this needs to be visible to others for inspiration and understanding. During 2023 we had three blog posts published covering “Domain Scorecard”, “New Patterns in Domain Registration” and “Address Accuracy within the Registry”, with the latter being a big hit in social media. In collaborations with the Communications and Marketing Team, two signature publications were created with novel insights: the annual Domain Profile Report and the Retail Excellence Ireland (REI) Web Health Report. Finally, our team attended international conferences such as RIPE, ICANN, DNS OARC and presented results and new ideas at industry forum such as CENTR. From these, we can draw inspiration and understanding by capturing and sharing emerging best practices in DNS management, in tackling DNS Abuse and in cybersecurity developments in our sectors. “Our objective is to shift the needle towards better outcomes: high adoption of security features in the .ie namespace.” Sebastian Castro, Principal Data Scientist, .IE Business Review IE Domain Registry CLG t/a .IE / Annual Report & Review 2023 20