Tuesday, March 26, 2024

How Do I Secure My Domain Name

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Know When Your Domain Name Expires

How to secure your domain name services

This might seem obvious, but not knowing when your domain name expires could cost you your domain name. Permanently. Check the seventh line of the WHOIS listing to know exactly when your domain name expires. Then, mark your calendar so you can renew in time.

If you do not renew your domain name before it expires, you might lose it forever. In fact, there are companies that automatically scan domain names and buy up expired names simply to sell them back to the original owner. If they get your address, they effectively can hold your domain name hostage, and charge whatever they want to sell it back to you.

Tips On Avoiding Buying Stolen Domain Names

What if you were on the other side say you were a domain name buyer?

You came across a very good deal on a short, simple domain name, say 4-6 characters that you want to purchase.

To read about how short letter domain name makes a great impact on the audience?

Now, before you purchase the domain name, you would want to find all the necessary details about the individual who is selling the domain. It turns out to be all good the person you are buying from seems legit, the authentication code has been passed, and now you are the brand new owner of the domain name.

Tips on avoiding buying stolen domain names

But, hours or days later, suddenly, the real owner contacts you stating that he/she is the legitimate owner of the domain brand name you are using and that it was stolen.

What now? What can you do in this situation? Well, all you can do is file a dispute with the payment processor used for making transactions to get your money back. It is the wisest thing to do at this time. And most importantly, you would want to give back the brand domain name back to its original owner since using a stolen domain is illegal.

Tips To Protect Your Domain And Prevent Email Spoofing

Spoofing is a tactic used in cyber attacks in which crooks try to impersonate a domain in order to lure and deceive others. The reason is obvious: if you know the message sender or the information source, youre much more likely to interact with it. Its merely a matter of trust and security. Of course, attackers know this and take advantage of it. So much so that spoofing is related to social engineering cases, spam campaigns, phishing and spear phishing attacks.

As a result, spoofing can harm you and your business in two ways. First, by using your domain. Indeed, cybercriminals can use your domain, company name and brand to commit scams and frauds, especially via email. Second, by flooding your mailbox with dangerous and unwanted messages. Imagine if a companys employee is deceived by a cybercriminal who has dark interests. As in the first case, the damage can be huge.

Email spoofing has been a common technique used by crooks because the process of sending emails doesnt have advanced messaging authentication mechanisms.

The sending process is based on the SMTP protocol, which isnt too concerned about the senders address. The main SMTP purpose is just to carry the messages, which allows criminals to use other peoples domains.

So its possible that someone may be using your domain and company name right now to spread spam and phishing attacks. No need to say how that may tarnish your reputation and brand.

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How To Register A Domain Name: 4 Options

To get a domain name, youll need to call dibs with ICANN. ICANN is a global non-profit authority that maintains records on which domain and IP address belongs to whom and manages access to them.

But ICANN doesnt provide registration services, it only maintains records. Thats where domain name registrars come into play.

The primary role of a register is to:

  • Coordinate claims on different domain names.
  • Match specific domain names with Domain Name System nameservers.
  • Ensure that there are no duplicate domain names.

Technically speaking, you are not buying a domain name from a registrar company, but reserve its usage for a specified time. You can pay to reserve a domain for 1-10 years at a time, depending on the registrar. After your initial subscription expires, youll need to renew it and pay a fee again. You can re-purchase your domain name over and over again.

When registering a domain name, you sign a long-term lease of your domain . You can read more about the domain costs here.

In practice, all of the above is much simpler than you think as we will show below.

How Do I Keep My Domain Name Secure

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As businesses increasingly turn to the online world for commerce, a domainname and its associated website are far more than just online brochures in manycases. Some businesses would lose thousands, even millions of dollars a dayshould their domain name become compromised. Even given this importance, domain name security is anissue too often overlooked.

What are the threats?

The most common security threat in relation to domain names is someoneaccessing the account and pointing the site elsewhere – or even attempting totransfer the name to another party. While these incidences can be easilyrectified, even a day or two of domain name related problems can seriouslytarnish a business, seriously disrupt communications and heavily impact its bottom line.

Keeping your account secure

People often use common passwords or very short passwords to protect their accounts that can be easy toguess – for example, some continue to use the word “password” -this is a security nightmare that happens all too often. The longer and more complex you make a password, the harderit is to crack and the more secure it is. By introducing numbers and a mix of lower and upper casecharacters, it becomes even harder to compromise and offers a far greater level of protection. This doesn’t mean to say youneed a password that you can’t remember you can use one that forms anon-language word that is pronounceable for example: Bogaloy4u2.

Controlling access

Administrative email accounts

Monitoring changes

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How To Find Out Who Owns A Domain Name

When you register a domain name, the ICANN requires you to provide personal contact information that will be stored in the WHOIS database.

Basically, as soon as the domain name is in the database, the record is publicly available to anyone who uses the WHOIS search tool.

There are loads of WHOIS tools available on the Internet, but you can try out, for example, the ICANN Lookup tool.

What Is The Threat Landscape

There are two types of consequences when domain theft happens

  • The hacker changes registration contact details and takes control over the brand domain names registered under the compromised account
  • The hacker alters DNS configuration so that the DNS resolution is performed by the name server and not operated by the victim.
  • Get notified of any domain data changes.

    In case, if the hacker keeps the domain name, they may change the registration data associated with the domain name, because this is the most accessible proof that victims may show. The hacker may change payment information and transfer the domain to a new registrar. Although the new registrar will have details about the new customer, they will not have any registration activity history.

    All this makes the brand domain name recovery process trying and long.

    Read Also: Cost To Purchase A Domain Name

    Register The Domain In Your Name Or The Companys

    If you donât directly handle your IT matters, you may not stop to pay attention to whose name your domain is being registered to. Ensure that it is registered in the companyâs name or in your own name. If it is somehow registered to an employee, the employee could end up taking your domain name with them if they leave.

    Which Is Better Google Domain Or Godaddy

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    GoDaddy is high priced as compared to Google domains. However, in terms of other services, GoDaddy domain registration provides a good collection of available TLDs. Though the choice depends on your requirements, if you are a beginner then GoDaddy is good to go option for hosting and domain registration.

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    Should I Reserve Other Domain Names

    Because of the prospect of typo-squatters and other forms of piracy, you might consider registering additional forms of your domain names, even if you are not planning to use them. For example, if you obtained your domain name in the TLD “.com, “you could register the same domain name under the “.net” or “.biz” TLDs. You could also attempt to register variants of the SLD that consist of logical misspellings or a plural form.

    Use A Strong Password

    The next domain security best practice is a big one: protect your account by using a strong password one thats nearly impossible to guess or hack to gain access to your account. And make your life easier by using a password manager.

    Do not, for instance, use the same password for your domain account as you do for your email account. If you use the same password in multiple places, it makes it easier for someone to gain access to your other accounts.

    Use this free online tool to check if you have an account that has been compromised in a data breach.

    Related: 10 best practices for creating and securing stronger passwords

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    Names And Ip Addresses

    The first step in acquiring a host is to register a name. These are regulated and maintained by name registrars, which ensure that there is no repetition. The actual registration can be done directly through the registrar but most likely will be done by a third party like a hosting service. They are easily readable by people, but for computers to understand them, domain names have to be linked to binary IP addresses through special servers called domain name servers . This system allows for a them to be transferred to another server should the webmaster decide to use a different platform.

    How To Register Your Website’s Domain Name

    How To Keep Your Domain Name Secure

    The first domain name in history was Symbolics.com, which was registered on March 15, 1985. Today, there are more than 300 million domain names, with millions more added each year. A domain name is essentially the address that visitors will type into their browser address bar to arrive at your website.

    Domain names allow users to easily connect to other computer IP addresses by typing in an address like “Google.com” instead of Google’s numerical IP address of “74.125.239.116.” In other words, domain names make our lives a lot easier.

    Your domain name is an important part of establishing your brand. No two domain names can be exactly alike, although they can be similar. Ideally, your domain name will be unique and distinctive, so users don’t confuse it with other domain names or different businesses.

    You might be wondering isn’t a domain name, then, simply a website? Although they are similar, domain names and websites have important differences. Your domain name is the address for your website it is what people use to find your website, which consists of pages, images, and other files.

    Choosing and registering a domain name is often the first step when building a website. Read on to learn how to register a domain name.

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    Can Someone Hijack A Domain

    Domain hijacking can be accomplished in a variety of methods, including illegal access to or exploiting a weakness in the domain name registrar’s system, social engineering, or gaining access to the domain owner’s email account linked with the domain name registration. The latter is called “email hijacking.” Once access has been achieved, a hacker can change the domain name’s settings and redirect it to any other website.

    Outdated Or Inaccurate Registrar Contact Information

    You need to understand that registrars dont send out notifications and renewal notices via postal mail. When you are registering for a domain name, you will be asked to provide your valid email address.

    • When providing your contact information, ensure that everything is up-to-date. Give the permanent email address that you use on a daily basis. And refrain from using free-service emails that expire if you dont use them regularly.
    • You need to keep your domain account billing information accurate. It is because if you use the auto-renewal feature, you need to provide the right payment information so that the registrar can renew your domain from your bank. If you change the payment mode, say to credit card, update the details as soon as possible.
    • Your domain name registrar will use your contact information. Not only to send account summaries or renewal notices but will also use it for account management features like sending forgotten passwords, account verification, new deals and offers, and more.

    Read Also: Making Money Selling Domains

    What Happens If Someone Steals Your Domain Name

    Contact the person via email and ask them if they are willing to sell the domain to you. If they are willing to sell it to you, make sure to negotiate a good deal. Some web companies offer a service to recover your domain. They will go through the necessary steps in order to regain control over your domain name.

    The Name Should Reflect Your Interests

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    Your website will become your ground for implementing all your digital efforts. Therefore, selecting a domain name which communicates your product is important.

    When developing a domain name, you should think about how the name looks and sounds. Avoid making the name too long for your audience to remember. Furthermore, some platforms like Twitter limit the number of characters.

    The domain name has to appeal to the market and evoke the desired inference for it to attract traffic to your website. A strategy which works for many businesses is forming a name from their brand. Such names promote the awareness and recognition of ones brand on the market.

    If you havent developed a brand yet, you can incorporate a witty call to action in the domain name. The name should draw the attention of the desired audience at a glance.

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    Only Redirect To Other Public Sector Domains

    Redirecting browser traffic from a gov.uk to a non-public sector domain like .org or .com will mean your organisation is in breach of the .gov.uk domain name terms of use. Visitors might not trust a non-public sector domain name and it could cause confusion.

    You must only redirect .gov.uk domains to other .gov.uk or public sector domains like .nhs.uk, .gov.scot or .police.uk.

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