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A domain name is one of the most important and valuable assets of a company (or even an individual). If you lose control of it due to the registration expiring, or as a result of fraud or a hacker attack, you could lose all the traffic to your website, which may have taken years to build up.
However, anyone visiting your domain who expects to find your business will end up on a different website. In the worst-case scenario, this could be a malicious website, perhaps even one that is a copy of your own site but steals your customers. To prevent this from happening, it is important to keep your domain names secure. Here are a few tips to help you do just that.
The tips listed here essentially apply to international domain names such as .com, .net, .org and similar.
Automatically renew your domain names
One of the easiest ways to lose control of your domain name is by failing to complete the renewal of your registration. If this happens, the domain becomes available for registration by anyone else – after a certain grace period has elapsed. If someone else registers it, it will be impossible to get it back – except in a few special cases, such as where a trade mark is involved.
They also benefit from the domain name’s reputation, their website’s traffic and its ranking in search engines. The easiest way to prevent your registration from expiring is to enable the automatic renewal function on our client portal, so you don’t have to manage the process manually. That way, when renewal is due, it will happen automatically.
When your subscription is due for renewal, you will receive a reminder email informing you of the costs and the renewal period (one or two years, or other), and you will be notified once the renewal has been completed. You can prevent the automatic renewal process if your payment details are out of date.
If you are using a new payment card or bank account and have not updated the details in your hosting account, you may find that you are unable to pay the renewal fee. Please ensure that these details are up to date and, for added security, use multiple payment methods if possible.
Keep your domain portfolio in one place
If you have several domains with different registrars, or if you use web hosting and register your domains with different companies, it can be difficult to keep track of where your domains are or when they need to be renewed. As a result, it’s easy for a renewal or an expired payment method to go unnoticed. To make managing your domains and payments easier, the best solution is to transfer them all to the same registrar – ideally, the company you use for your web hosting. That way, you can manage everything from a single place.
Always keep your data up to date
ICANN, Eurid and, essentially, every organisation responsible for domain registration requires that contact details be kept up to date. It is important that the registrar always has your most up-to-date contact details, as this enables them to contact you quickly should any issues arise regarding renewal or suspicious activity.
Locking a domain name
For added protection, you should be able to lock your domain via our client portal (provided this option is available for the specific extension; this feature is not available for all extensions). This is useful because it can prevent cybercriminals from transferring your domain to another registrar or nameserver. If, for example, your name servers are changed, visitors who click on a link pointing to your domain will be taken to a completely different website, or – as mentioned above – to a clone of your website that has been deliberately created to deceive them.
Keep your domain details private
By default, the WHOIS database publicly lists and publishes details of who has registered a website. There have been instances where cybercriminals have attempted to exploit this data to steal domains or cause other problems for the owners.
Using two-factor authentication
Cybercriminals who want to steal your domain or change your name servers need to gain access to the accounts you use to manage them. It is therefore vital that you protect your client area, control panel and website login with strong usernames and passwords, and use two-factor authentication for added security. Usernames and passwords can be cracked on their own using sophisticated tools; however, with two-factor authentication, a hacker would also need to gain access to an additional, short-lived code sent to your mobile phone.
Don’t fall victim to phishing
Hackers have an easy time of it when they want to find out a company’s email addresses and the name of its web hosting provider. They use this information to target people within your organisation with phishing emails that appear – sometimes convincingly – to have come from your web hosting provider. The emails often claim that there is a problem with your hosting and ask you to log in to your account to resolve the issue.
However, the link provided in these emails leads you to a fake website, where your login details will be stolen. It is always best to log in to your account by searching for it online, rather than by clicking on a link in an email. However, even with stolen login details, a hacker would not be able to access an account protected by two-factor authentication without also having the code sent to your mobile phone.