Cybersecurity: why and how to secure your domain name?

When we talk about cybersecurity, we immediately think of account security, passwords, data privacy, antivirus software, or firewalls. Yet, businesses often forget to protect a fundamental element of their online presence: their domain name.

Far more than just a web address, the domain name is the major digital entry point for a business. But to what extent can it also be a company’s Achilles’ heel in terms of cybersecurity? Discover how and why securing your domain name should be a priority in any cybersecurity strategy.

Why is your domain name the pillar of your digital identity?

As mentioned in the introduction, your domain name is an entry point and the heart of your online presence. It forms the core of the infrastructure that powers your entire daily business operations.

Your domain name: The hub of your business

In practical terms, your domain name is the key to all your online services. It hosts your website or e-commerce platform that generates your revenue, your professional tools (CRM, ERP, intranet…) used by your teams, as well as your professional messaging through which all your daily communications transit.

Without a functional domain name, your entire activity comes to a standstill: customers cannot place orders, internal and external communications are blocked, online services and tools are interrupted, and… financial losses occur.

Your domain name: A vector of trust and reputation

Beyond operational aspects, your domain name represents your brand to your customers and partners. It is the address of your website and the basis of your email address, providing a mark of trust in all your digital interactions: newsletters, push notifications, SMS, emails, blog posts, affiliate or sponsored links…

In this way, your domain name assures users of the legitimacy and reliability of the communications they receive: an email from @mycompany.com carries credibility that a generic email address cannot match.

This trust is both a major strength and a potential vulnerability. It is precisely the central importance of the domain names that makes them a prime target for cybercriminals.

 

What threats is your domain name exposed to?

Even a temporary loss of control over your domain name can have disastrous consequences for your business: loss of access to essential services, business interruptions, serious financial impact, or damage to your brand image and reputation.

The techniques used by cybercriminals are increasingly sophisticated: they exploit the smallest technical weaknesses, but also user psychology.

Homograph attacks

Typosquatting is among the most common techniques. It involves registering a domain name similar to the target brand, playing on the spelling of the domain. Multiple methods are used:

• Use of other extensions (mycompany.co or mycompany.fr instead of mycompany.com),
• Use of visually similar characters (rn instead of m),
• Use of accents (àmazòn.com instead of amazon.com), or characters from other alphabets (Cyrillic а instead of Latin a like the famous fake аррӏе.com).

These fake domains closely imitate the design of the original site and are then used for malicious purposes. The site becomes a phishing platform, aiming to steal login details via fraudulent emails, generate payments for fake products or services, or collect private data… For example, in France, we no longer count the number of fraudulent emails posing as ameli.fr (the health insurance website), inviting us to log in, in order to steal our sensitive data…

🗨️ In June 2023, a spectacular case showed how far a homograph domain impersonation can go: in the UK, Chelmsford Prison released a prisoner after receiving a fraudulent email using the “.org” extension instead of “.gov” to imitate the UK government email address. Prison staff only discovered the error after the release… [Source]

🗨️ Another example is the Vinci case in 2016: fake press releases announcing poor financial results and the dismissal of the CFO were sent via a fraudulent email address and a spoofed website. As a result, this CAC40 company saw its share price drop 19% in a few minutes, wiping out €7 billion in market capitalisation. [Source]

Domain theft attacks

Beyond imitation through similar domains, domain theft represents an even more critical threat. It is no longer about imitating the company, but stealing its own domain name.

Cybercriminals target client accounts at registrars to take control of a domain name and redirect traffic to another fraudulent site or server, intercept emails, transfer the domain, or simply delete it…

The procedures to recover a domain can be long and costly. Meanwhile, the business suffers interruptions, revenue loss, and reputational damage with clients and partners.

DNS attacks

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the infrastructure that governs the entire internet network and translates IP addresses into domain names: this is DNS resolution.

Some attacks aim to spoof DNS responses to compromise access to a domain name. For example, DNS cache poisoning or Man-in-The-Middle attacks falsify the IP address a domain resolves to. As a result, users are redirected to a fraudulent site intended for phishing or malware distribution without even being aware of the hijack.

Another type of attack: DDoS attacks. These can flood DNS servers with millions of simultaneous requests, causing critical server overload and making a website inaccessible for hours or even days…

What solutions can strengthen your domain name security?

In the face of these threats, securing your domain name must become a priority to protect your business. Here are the fundamental practices to implement:

Secure access to your Registrar account

An essential prerequisite that is often neglected: protecting your domain administration accounts. Anticipate and configure:

• a complex and unique password (👉 our tips for a truly secure password),
• two-factor authentication,
• passkeys,
• login alerts,
• a backup email address,
• restrictions (Registry Lock) and rights management

Ensure DNS response availability and integrity

These may not be the first criteria that come to mind, but the availability and integrity of DNS service are major elements of domain name security.

Choosing a DNS Anycast infrastructure will distribute requests across multiple geographically dispersed servers. This approach not only improves performance by bringing servers closer to users but also dilutes the load in case of a DDoS attack.

Similarly, to protect the integrity of your DNS responses and guard against DNS cache poisoning or Man-in-The-Middle attacks, you can enable DNSSEC (“Domain Name System Security Extensions”) on your domain. DNSSEC is an option provided by your Registrar that adds verification steps (invisible to your site visitors) between the DNS resolver and the server to ensure the authenticity of your domain’s IP address.

Protect your brand

To best guard against homograph attacks and typosquatting, several solutions are available:

• Register multiple variants of your domain name: with and without accents (loreal.com and loréal.com); with common misspellings (google.com and goggle.com); or across multiple extensions (netim.com and netim.fr)

• Opt for blocking options that prevent your brand from being registered under other extensions or domain variants. This approach is much more cost-effective than registering hundreds of domain variants. 👉 Discover the various blocking services offered by Netim.
• Finally, brand extensions (dotBrand), such as .LECLERC or .GOOGLE, represent the ultimate protection solution. A .BRAND gives its holder total control over all domains under that extension. Users benefit from absolute authenticity assurance and quickly learn to identify legitimate sites: only the .BRAND extension is genuine and any other extension is suspicious.

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