NIC.tr

NIC.tr is the official registry responsible for Turkey's country-code top-level domain (.tr). It provides domain name registration services to registrars and end‑users. The organisation operates the authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure for the .tr zone. This includes maintaining the set of nameservers that answer queries for .tr domains. By ensuring the resolution and stability of the .tr namespace, NIC.tr supports internet connectivity for users within Turkey and abroad. Its services are used by a range of stakeholders, from commercial enterprises to government institutions and individual registrants.

The scale of NIC.tr’s operation is illustrated by the 2015 Distributed Denial of Service attack that targeted all five of its .tr nameservers simultaneously. The attack peaked at approximately 40 gigabits per second, overwhelming the infrastructure and rendering most .tr domains unreachable. This incident demonstrates that NIC.tr manages a critical node of Turkey’s internet infrastructure, as the nameservers are essential for the resolution of every .tr domain. As the national ccTLD registry, NIC.tr holds a specialised regulatory role, implementing domain‑name policy under the oversight of Turkish telecommunications authorities. It also coordinates with external partners such as the RIPE Network Coordination Centre, which served as a secondary DNS provider during the 2015 attack to mitigate disruption. These attributes position NIC.tr as a key operator in the national digital ecosystem, responsible for the security, stability and resilience of the .tr domain space.