Global alert : Domain hackers are attempting to steal domains, where the registrant uses AOL, Yahoo or Hotmail accounts.
There have been numerous instances of such attempts and even successful domain theft incidents that we’re aware of.
Changing one’s managing accounts to secure free email providers such as Gmail or ProtonMail is the first step in safekeeping your domain names.
But why move away from popular but aged free email account providers, such as AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail?
Cybercriminals peruse existing massive database leaks, looking for password matches. We are talking about billions of email addresses and assorted passwords that were compromised in the past, and this type of information is shared on the so-called Dark Web.
There are several benefits from moving your registrant, administrative and technical contacts to Gmail.
In recent months, Gmail moved away from a static login page, to a dynamic portal that cannot be spoofed by phishers and cybercriminals. Coupled with enabling two factor authentication at Gmail, this change will secure your email account almost 100%.
ProtonMail offers the benefit of peer to peer encryption and is also recommended; the company is based in Switzerland, and if you don’t want to trust Google, that’s a great alternative.
Are popular telecom provider email addresses secure?
Emails using such providers as Verizon, ATT and Earthlink should be considered unfavorable for controlling your domain portfolio, and we do not recommend them.
As a final step, always enable two factor authentication at your domain registrar, preferably using the Google App as opposed to SMS texting, as SIM card hijacking instances are on the rise.
Except that Gmail.com is owned by the CIA.
Tom – Putin owns the CIA.
The CIA is owned by the mob (aka: Deep State, Shadow Gov’t, Majestic-12, Illuminati, or the Militari Industrial Complex). Putin is trying to buy them now. Isn’t successful, may be soon.
Seriously, this is good information. Thank you.
You should definitely be sticking to mainstream email providers. In addition to the issues stated here, Oath (Yahoo, AOL) and most ISPs have more or less given up on handling email properly. Their systems are insecure, primitive, and very bad at spam filtering. (They’ll mark legitimate emails as spam and illegitimate emails as ham.)
One little nitpick: ProtonMail isn’t peer-to-peer encrypted. Theoretically, it could be a zero-knowledge service; this means ProtonMail wouldn’t be able to see what you send/receive. In practice, this isn’t possible while maintaining compatibility with third-party email providers. ProtonMail is definitely secure and a great product, but they do see everything you send/receive to non-ProtonMail users. You have no guarantee that they don’t store that information, or that someone else isn’t watching.
You might be thinking of end-to-end encryption, of which ProtonMail is capable when sending to other ProtonMail users. However, it’s not peer-to-peer, encrypted or otherwise.