Last year an Arizona man was sentenced for holding
his former employer’s domain name
hostage and asking for $10,000
to return the domain name. The man
managed the domain name for the company
when he was an employee there. He
retained the account details when he
left.
While stories like this rarely make the
news, they’re more common than you
probably think. It’s important for all
companies—regardless of size—to have a
plan in place to prevent their domain
name from being held hostage.
Here are some things you can do:
Single-Owner Companies
You have plenty to do if you’re the owner
of a small business, so it’s natural
that you want to delegate registering
and maintaining domain names to the
person managing your website.
And domain names are inexpensive, so
what’s the risk to you? Be careful about
that line of thinking. The price you pay
for a domain name is very different than
the value it has to your company. Your
domain is your brand, your lifeblood
online, and vital to keep your website
up and your email running.
Bottom line: if you own your company, you
should personally own and control your
company’s domain names. Don’t let an
employee or consultant handle this for
you or you could end up like the company
in Arizona.
Bigger Companies Need Robust Security
Protocols
At large companies, there should never be
just one person with the keys to the
company’s domains. It’s better to assign
control to a secure e-mail address at
the company that several people can
access. Be sure to change account and
email credentials whenever an employee
who had access to the account leaves the
business.
Beyond that, it’s wise to have an overall
robust security protocol in place. Just
like you wouldn’t let one employee have
access to your company’s most important
systems, a protocol should be in place
to requires checks before an employee
can make a change to your domain name.
Stop Outside Thieves
You should recognize potential security
threats from within as well as beyond
your company walls. Once you have your
domains locked down with employees, you
need to make sure people outside your
company can’t hack in and steal your
domains or alter their records.
There are two things you should do to
reduce the chances of this happening:
- Use two-factor authentication. Learn more about
what this is and how to turn it
on at Kyakabi Data.
- Turn on domain lock. Domain lock
(free) prevents your domain name
from being transferred to another
domain name registrar without your
authorization. Here’s how to
turn it on.
Be Proactive
With news of hacks and data theft
seemingly every day, now is a great time
to make sure you aren’t overlooking
domain name security risks. The steps
outlined in this post will help secure
your domain names. Even after you follow
these steps, it’s important to remain
vigilant.
