As cyber threats evolve and change with new technologies, domain, DNS, and SSL security remains critical for businesses of all sizes, serving as the foundational pillars for establishing and maintaining a secure online presence.
For smaller enterprises, safeguarding domain names helps to ensure brand integrity and protects against cyber threats, which in turn stabilizes and fosters customer trust over time. Effective DNS security is needed to prevent service disruptions and mitigate the risk of data breaches. SSL security, through encrypted communication, not only secures sensitive data transmission but is required for when it comes to customers or users feeling confident about sharing information on web applications.
When it comes to large enterprises with more expansive digital footprints, which is what Webnames Corporate specializes in, comprehensive domain management is the key to preventing unauthorized access, with wrap-around DNS and SSL security to protect diverse online services. As the digital front line expands for businesses, prioritizing these security measures is instrumental for maintaining a resilient digital environment, safeguarding business continuity, and upholding the integrity of brands in an era of heightened cyber threats.
While the recommendations for maintaining a secure organizational domain and DNS footprint remain largely consistent year in and out, they are not “set-it and forget it” practices. It’s important that businesses come back at a regular cadence, minimally once per year, ideally more, to confirm that their domain management processes and security measures work as intended.
Below are a series of important recommendations that organizations need to implement and regularly review for a consistently secure domain footprint.
Centralize and Consolidate your Domain Names
If you haven’t already, create a plan to consolidate business domains that are spread across different providers with a single, reputable corporate domain registrar that features robust security features, highly responsive account managers, and is committed to industry best practices.
When comparing providers, directly ask about response times, management and change fees and domain modification costs. Look for clear, transparent pricing that you can reliably forecast around. Have your IT team review the control panel; ideally you should be able to self-manage any aspect of your domain portfolio, in addition to your registrar account manager doing it on your behalf. Ask for client references you can speak to directly and research the registrar’s reputation within the industry.
Restrict Access to Account, Domain and DNS Settings
The more people who have access to your organization’s domain names and DNS settings, the greater the risk of something going wrong. Always operate by the principle of least privilege to reduce the risk of domain mistakes, mismanagement , hijacking. If multiple team members or business units absolutely need access, assign hierarchical user roles and require unique logins to offset the risk. The ability to manage how different users can access or modify domain settings needs to be a vendor requirement when evaluating enterprise domain registrars if even more than one person or team needs to access corporate domain names.
For example, Webnames Corporate’s multi-user functionality provides individual staff with unique login credentials, as well as controlled access via six distinct, hierarchical user roles designed to fulfill different use case and domain management requirements. Moreover, a complete history of every action taken within the account is available at all times for full transparency and oversight.
Implement a No Expiry Policy on Certain Domain Names
Implement a no expiry policy on brand referencing and previously used business domains to prevent repurposing by cybercriminals. Expired domains that were once connected to legitimate, reputable businesses can be used variously for phishing, account takeovers, launching script-based attacks and brand-impersonating or lookalike websites. Identifying and renewing these domains is an effective and comparatively inexpensive safeguard for your brand, reputation and corporate cyber security.
Utilize Domain Name and Account Locks
Implementing domain locks on key business and brand domain names should be a security non-negotiable in this day and age. Registry, registrar and account locks act as an additional layers of defense, preventing unauthorized transfers, modifications, or deletions of an organization’s valuable domains, safeguarding their overall stability. Locks require extra authentication steps, often involving manual, multi-step approvals that make it significantly harder for bad actors to compromise domain settings, initiate transfers or change registrant information. Enterprises, governments and businesses with high-traffic websites, or those that face significant revenue and reputational risk if a key website or DNS-dependent application gets compromised, may even wish to consider a layered lock approach on business critical domains. Locks should be a non-negotiable in your vendor requirement list when comparing enterprise registrars. .
Conduct Regular Domain, DNS and Security Audits
Audit your domain registration details yearly, at minimum, to confirm that the associated registrant and contact information is up-to-date, and that your domain names are registered to your organization and not individual employees. While you are there, review associated DNS records for old, unused entries that may point to servers you no longer control, removing outdated or unnecessary entries. Also verify that your DNS records are configured optimally, zone files are accurate and DNSSEC is properly implemented.
Implement an Incident Response Plan
Having a well-defined incident response plan for tackling domain-related issues will increase an organization’s resilience to security threats, improve recovery times and minimize damage while ensuring operational continuity. Response plans should clearly identify roles and responsibilities for individuals involved in managing a domain security incident to ensure a systematic and coordinated response to redress impacted online assets. Response plans should also provide a framework for post-incident analysis to identify root causes and areas for improvement. This continuous improvement cycle will help to strengthen the security posture of the organization post-incident and into the future.
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By implementing the above measures, organizations can dramatically reduce the cybersecurity risks associated with managing a corporate domain portfolio, whether it’s for a single brand or a global company with many subsidiaries. With 23-years of experience managing complex domain name portfolios for Canada’s biggest brands and global Fortune 500 companies, Webnames Corporate is known for it’s deep expertise, world class domain management platform, innovative security tools and high touch service standards.
If you have questions about how to implement any of the above recommendations or are looking to consolidate your domain portfolio for secure, stable management into the future, we are ready to help make it happen. Schedule a call with us at your convenience to learn more about how we can transform your domain management for the better.
