How to Protect Your Domain from Cyber Threats: A Guide to Domain Security

In the digital world of 2025, it’s never been more important to protect your online assets. One of the most significant parts of starting up a brand is creating a website, and to create a website, you need a domain. This essentially provides the cornerstone to all your online offerings.

When users search for your company, they will most likely do so by entering the title of your domain into the browser – the digital address that represents your business on the web, serving as a point of access for all potential customers, clients, partners and other stakeholders. Just as you would lock the front door of a land-based business, then, you need to do everything in your power to protect it.

As businesses and individuals continue to rely heavily on their digital presence, cyber threats targeting domains have become far more frequent. Just last year, it was reported that 560,000 new cyber threats were discovered daily, with 800,000 domains vulnerable to cyberattacks. To deal with the problem, then, you need to be aware of what is going on and put all the necessary security procedures in place to cut off any attacks before they happen.

The Cyber Threat

Let's start with the good news! Today, business owners—both small and large—can easily and quickly choose a name for their domain, thanks to a domain name generator. Advanced tools can display available options within seconds and provide general descriptions to help business owners select the best option for them.

The bad news? Every year, there are hundreds of thousands of cyberattacks on domains, with an average website facing around 94 attacks a day.

The most common of these attacks is known as ‘domain hijacking’, where an attacker gains unauthorised access to a domain name registered under a legitimate owner, and transfers it to their own control. This can happen when attackers exploit weaknesses in a domain registrar’s security, or trick the domain owner into handing over control through methods like phishing or social engineering.

The ultimate goal, here, is to either take full control of the domain and its associated assets – such as websites, email accounts, or subscriber information – or use the domain to conduct illegal or malicious activities.

Another common attack is known as ‘DNS Spoofing’, when a hacker alters the DNS – Domain Name System – records to redirect traffic from a legitimate website to a malicious one. This is done by corrupting the cache of DNS servers, which store the mapping of domain names to IP addresses.

Other common attack methods include phishing attacks, as mentioned previously, MITM attacks – when a hacker intercepts and alters communication between two parties without their knowledge – DDoS attacks – when attackers overwhelm your domain’s server with a flood of traffic, causing your website to slow or crash entirely – and SSL certificate exploits – when a hacker exploits weak encryption or outdated SSL protocols to expose sensitive data.

Passwords and Updated Details

Falling victim to any one of these attacks can be catastrophic for you and your business. For starters, depending on the severity of the attack, your customers are likely going to know about it – especially if the hacker uses your domain for malicious purposes – which means your brand will come off in a bad light. You can also lose a great deal of website traffic, with a compromised domain leading to your website being taken offline, which could potentially affect your SEO marketing campaign and make your efforts obsolete.

As well as this, there are legal issues to consider, especially if a hacker uses your domain to run scams, and your financial details – as well as the financial details of your users – could be in jeopardy. Protecting yourself from these cyber threats, then, is crucial if you want to survive as a business and keep the reputation of your brand strong. The first thing you should do is use strong and unique passwords.

As we mentioned previously, your domain registrar account is the gateway to your domain, so it’s crucial to secure it using a combination of strong, complex passwords, 2FA, and a password manager to keep track of the associated details.

Many domains also offer a feature known as ‘domain locking’, which prevents unauthorised transfers from your domain – meaning it cannot be moved to another registrar without your permission. It’s also important to keep your contact information updated, making sure your registrar account contains current and accurate contact information to receive essential security alerts or account updates.

Security and Monitoring

In terms of software security, there are many options you can look at to provide extra layers of protection. DNSSEC is a good place to start, with the feature working to protect your DNS from attacks such as cache poisoning and man-in-the-middle – when enabled, it verifies the domain’s IP address and ensures the information returned by a DNS query is authentic.

A web application firewall can also be a solid software solution, designed to protect your domain from various types of cyber threats – including SQL injections and XSS – and a DNS firewall can work as a protective layer for your DNS infrastructure, preventing attackers from redirecting your traffic.

Apart from this, it’s a good idea to claim SSL and TLS certificates. While primarily known for encrypting website traffic, these certificates can contribute significantly to domain security by verifying the authenticity of your website and ensuring all data transferred is secure, with the cryptographic protocol encrypting all communications, user data, and any financial details.

With all of these security protocols in place, you can begin to feel a little more confident that your domain is safe, but that doesn’t mean the work stops there. On the contrary, it’s important to continually monitor your domain for suspicious activity – such as unauthorised changes or transfer requests – set up expiration alerts, and carry out regular backups to ensure your website can be quickly restored in the event of an attack or data loss.

Gaining Knowledge

With one of the most common forms of attack being phishing, it’s also essential that you are aware of the dangers and you make sure your team is aware too. This is the point of vulnerability that no firewall or certificate can stop. As mentioned before, one of the preferred ways to gain access to a domain is tricking the owner into giving the information away, so it’s up to you to make sure that doesn’t happen, and the doorway to your domain remains secured at both a technical and human level.

Starting with email, perhaps the most widely-used method by attackers is using emails that appear to come from legitimate sources – such as domain registrars or service providers – and urging the recipient to take urgent action, such as renewing or verifying their domain name. In this case, you need to be cautious of any email that comes from an unfamiliar address, and check fully that there’s no variation in the domain name – for instance, ‘admin@domainregistrar.com’ compared to ‘admin@domainregistar.com’. Did you have to read that twice to spot the difference? That’s exactly what you need to do if something like that lands in your inbox.

Training Staff

Links, unusual attachments, and misspellings are also red flags to watch out for, and when you have understood all of that, it’s crucial to share the information. While you might now know what to do to spot a hacker trying to gain control of your domain, your team might not, which is why it’s important to train staff and ensure everyone involved in managing your domain understands the protocols.

Encourage open communication, fostering a work environment where employees feel comfortable reporting any concerns they have, and make sure the training is regularly repeated and renewed when new information comes to light. Cybercriminals never stay still, of course, and there are always new methods and techniques that will be publicised through CERTs security bulletins, cybersecurity news websites, webinars, and more. Make sure to keep your ear to the ground, then, and share as many new details as possible.

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With new tech giving attackers numerous ways to target domains, the number of cyberattacks is only set to grow in 2025, costing an estimated $10.5 trillion according to experts. Whether it’s AI-powered attacks, automated phishing techniques, or DDoS, the cyber threats on our online infrastructure will intensify, which means the stakes for your business have never been higher.

Just as cyber threats are evolving rapidly, it’s your job to evolve your company along with them, putting as many procedures in place as possible to alleviate the problem and ensure you’re proactive rather than reactive. Remember, your domain is the cornerstone of your online presence. You cannot let it slip out of your hands, and even more importantly, you cannot let it be placed in someone else’s.

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