In today’s world, your virtual property is sometimes more important than your physical real estate. Don’t believe me? Imagine for a minute that someone stole your main domain — the domain name that’s the online address for your business website or the anchor of your business email address.
What will happen to your livelihood if you have to put the brakes on doing business online while you rebrand and market your new domain?
For example, you will lose access to your domain-based email account (e.g. info@yourbusiness.co.ke) if your domain name is stolen or otherwise inaccessible. What happens if your email is set up to receive the password reset for your bank, or brokerage, or something equally important?
That’s why domain security is critical.
5 domain security best practices
- Register your .KE domain name in your own account – for example, your technical people can access your .KE domain (or hosting) to work on your website without having the ability to remove those products from your account. This is by far the most common issue we see when people lose access to their .KE domain.Many people turn to others — like employees, webmasters and more tech-savvy friends or family members — to register the domain for them and set up their website or email. Years pass and life happens. Friends move away, employees move on to other jobs … the circumstances of life wind up distancing you and the other party when the .KE domain comes up for renewal.
All registrars certified byKeNIC, list public domain name registration information on the Whois database. The Whois listing includes registrant and other domain name contact information. It’s vital to keep the WHOIS records updated and accurately reflecting you or your company as the owner in the Registrant field. That way if you ever have an issue getting into your account, or getting to your .KE domain, you can prove you own the .KE domain by providing the correct documents to show you are indeed the registrant.
- Use a strong password: The next .KE domain security best practise is a big one: protect your account by using a strong password – one that’s directly impossible to guess or hack to gain access to your account. And make your life easier by using a password manager.
- Protect your email address: Take the extra step to safeguard the email address tied to your account. If someone is able to get into your email, many times they have carte blanche to all your valuable accounts, including your .KE domain name. It only takes a few clicks to get a password reset … and your account is compromised. This is why enabling two-factor on your accounts — including your email accounts — is so important.
- Enable two-factor authentication: Sometimes, even with a strong password, bad people can hack into your account through a tricky technique like malware or phishing. Pairing a strong password with two-factor authentications greatly increases your protection online.
- Remember your .KE domain name expiry date: Do you remember to set yourself a reminder before the .KE domain expiry date. You do not want to lose it forever just because of absentmindedness. There are individuals or companies waiting for your .KE domain to expire and take ownership. Next, they might be selling the .KE domain to your competitor at a higher price. Always remember to set a reminder!
Conclusion
Unfortunately, many people do not think about protecting their domain until it is too late. While domain theft is rare, it is always better to be safe than sorry. Register your domain today by contacting any of our credited registrars via https://kenic.or.ke/registrars/. Remember to give the correct details of yourself.