Information Highwaymen and Your Domain
You go to work every day at the store you own, and one morning,
your key to the door doesn't work. You look in the window, and
the display items have changed. A stranger is behind the
counter. But when you call the police, they can't do anything
because the company papers now indicate that the store belongs
to the stranger.
The above scenario isn't likely to happen with a
bricks-and-mortar store. Because of insecurities in the domain
registration system, however, information highwaymen could take
over your online business.
As with identity theft, domain thieves steal your identity --
the identity used to register and configure your domain name.
After that, your website, your email, your online business, and
possibly your reputation are theirs.
Domain names at risk of theft
While theft is a risk with all domain names, domains most at
risk are more valuable ones. Domains with dot com extensions
have a higher resale value than domains with other extensions,
and domains with high traffic or valuable keywords are also more
likely to be targets.
The motive behind domain hijacking is usually monetary, but it
may be personal. If anyone wants to attack you, stealing your
domain name is one way to do it.
How domain theft happens
When domain hijackers steal your domain, they gain access to the
domain's Whois records. They
can modify the domain's nameservers so that the domain points to
a different server. They can also transfer the domain to a
different registrar.
Either way, site visitors will find themselves at the website of
the domain hijacker instead of at your site. All domain email
will go to or through the other server instead of to you. All
you'll have left is a website without public access because your
domain isn't pointing to it any more.
How can this happen?
Domain hijacking methods