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Ask HN: How do I secure the domain for my business?

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Ask HN: How do I secure the domain for my business?

#1

Post by davidkuennen »

In all of my infrastructure, the provider hosting my domain (nameserver) is the most critical part. If I lose the account/access to whatever provider is hosting my domains everything crumbles. It's a single point of failure.

What are best practices to make this as secure as possible?

Re: Ask HN: How do I secure the domain for my business?

#3

Post by alias_neo »

There are features of domain providers that can prevent domain transfer without certain conditions being met.

I don't hold any domains for corporate enterprise purpose but, if I did, I'd be looking for domain registrars that can provide some guarantees.

I don't know if such a thing exists, hopefully someone here can answer that, but if not, I'd start making some phone calls/sending some emails to see what/who can offer better than your typical cookie cutter registrars.

Re: Ask HN: How do I secure the domain for my business?

#5

Post by davidkuennen »

alias_neo wrote: post #3

There are features of domain providers that can prevent domain transfer without certain conditions being met. I don't hold any domains for corporate enterprise purpose but, if I did, I'd be looking for domain registrars that can provide some guarantees. I don't know if such a thing exists, hopefully someone here can answer that, but if not, I'd start making some phone calls/sending some emails to see what/who can off…

Thanks a lot! Yeah, I'm looking for a registrar that ensures high security, availability and most importantly a functional support. I don't mind paying extra bucks.

Since I'm from Germany it'd propably be best to also use a provider from Germany in case any legal issues arise.

Re: Ask HN: How do I secure the domain for my business?

#6

Post by tomschwiha »

Setup an alternative e-mail address that you can assign to your hosting account. Happened once to me that my credit card failed and the domain didn't renew and ultimately cancelled my domain. However because of 2FA via e-mail I couldn't login to my account to pay the outstanding payment.

Re: Ask HN: How do I secure the domain for my business?

#7

Post by davidkuennen »

dagi3d wrote: post #4

Apart from the 2fa to for domain service itself, ensure you are enforcing 2fa if you use an external mail provider. And set the domains to autorenew.

Mails are another interesting factor. If you use your own domain for mails, where should you have the nameserver for that domain? If I use that mail to sign up for a registrar and the service disrupts, theoretically my mails shouldn't work anymore as well and I would be unable to recover anything.

Re: Ask HN: How do I secure the domain for my business?

#8

Post by chockchocschoir »

What are you trying to secure it against? This is always the first step to think about, also known as "threat assessment" or similar.

Are you trying to secure it against someone transferring the domains out of your account? Make sure you have all the account security up to date and correct (2FA on the account + the email account that has the ownership), and that all the "transfer locks" are setup (EPP codes and so on)

Are you trying to secure your DNS setup against various DNS attacks? Read up on DNS and various security patterns you can implement like DNSSEC and so on.

You're trying to prevent issues regarding DNS uptime (in case the main domain stops resolving, or other system problems)? In that case, setup DNS over multiple TLDs (and registrars) and have a process for failing over.

In short, it depends on what you're trying to protect against, and who you are trying to protect it against.

Re: Ask HN: How do I secure the domain for my business?

#10

Post by davidkuennen »

chockchocschoir wrote: post #8

What are you trying to secure it against? This is always the first step to think about, also known as "threat assessment" or similar. Are you trying to secure it against someone transferring the domains out of your account? Make sure you have all the account security up to date and correct (2FA on the account + the email account that has the ownership), and that all the "transfer locks" are setup (EPP codes and so on…

Most importantly securing against account termination and being unable to recover that account (like it happens a lot with Google).
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