I Can Steal Your Website
This has nothing to do with ICANN the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, but they certainly ought to be involved in a major policy change.
The domain of the very popular website MakeUseOf.com has been STOLEN! This was reported by Daniel Scocco during the night on his Blog DailyBlogTips.com.
The report says that MakeUseOf was being hosted on GoDaddy and that GD allowed the domain to be transfered away from the owner to somewhere in Dubai. GoDaddy no doubt will cover their ass by saying all security terms were met, but I say Bull Shit! Get better security terms!
How can this happen? MakeUseOf has over 20,000 subscribers, I being one, and we all enjoy the tips and free information given out contiuously be MakeUseOf.
This is a Nightmare, a Horror Story fitting for the Halloween season for sure, but sadly true and how will it be resolved?
What would you do if your baby was stolen and taken to a foreign country?
This industry needs better security methods similar to what the online banking industry uses such as, multiple security codes, a primary image associated with the account, two security questions, a mouse pointer select keyboard, and anything else that someone could come up with.
I did notice that one method being offered by some registrars is to limit activity to a specific IP address. That way transfers could only come from one specific computer. That seem like a good idea to me, what do you think?
For now you should make sure that you use DIFFERENT passwords for all of your domains, your administration panels, your hosting company accounts, and so on. Use multiple email addresses for different accounts.
What do you think? Can anyone come up with ideas on how to make this more secure. Lets talk about it. This HAS to be fixed.
Come on GoDaddy, fix this and return MakeUseOf to the rightful owner.
Rich Hill
UPDATE – UPDATE – UPDATE:
MakeUseOf has a temporary home on blogger until this gets fixed. go there and give them your support.
http://makeuseof-temporary.blogspot.com/2008/11/make-use-ofs-temporary-home.html
Great advice and thanks for writing about Makeuseof.com. I am a contributor on that site and was really shocked when I learned the news that it had been hacked.
I am not sure how much more security GoDaddy can offer when it comes to accounts. I use them for various things and they require 3 pieces of information from me everytime I call concerning my account.
We all want more security but when companies put secure options in place we often complain because it is more work for us to jump through hoops to even access our account.
Hopefully this will be solved soon and I am sure the publicity it is getting will make Makeuseof.com more popular than ever.
Wendy at The Computer Lady
The Computer Ladys last blog post..When did we start trusting strangers?
Comment by The Computer Lady — November 3, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
Hi Rich,
I love your article I did not that it was possible to steal a site. Unfortunately I don’t have a clue or ideas on how to solve this problem. Your suggestion to use multiple pass word I think is the least we can do to protect ourselves from this kind of theft. If I do get a flash on a possible solution I will let you in on it
Have a nice day
Claude
Claude (lasolution)s last blog post..Are you Thankful for what you Have ?
Comment by Claude (lasolution) — November 3, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Imagine the loss of income for a popular site if it takes GoDaddy even a few days to sort this out. The first challenge in this case I imagine is actually getting through to, and getting a response from, GoDaddy’s less than stellar customer support. This is one of the major reasons I moved from GoDaddy to Namecheap a while ago. GoDaddy just made it way too difficult to get customer service.
Thanks for spreading the news about this!
Comment by DonnaMiller@WordpressTutorials — November 4, 2008 @ 12:02 am
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Pingback by Szene-News - MakeUseOf hacked, Yahoo Live schliesst, Flickr 3 Mrd Photos | Wuensch-Media.de — November 4, 2008 @ 12:14 am
@Wendy,
Your comment is appreciated very much and we are all glad that it has been resolved. MakeUseOf is no longer hosted on Goaddy.
Comment by rich — November 6, 2008 @ 11:46 am
@Claude,
You mention the one area that I personally believe GoDaddy ranks very high for. That is their technical support people. For me they have ALWAYS resolved every issue quickly, intelligently, friendly and they take the time to make sure you understand each resolution. Every time I receive one of their tech support score cards, I ALWAYS rate their tech support people at the very highest level, and then close by voting the worst for the company part of the form. The people are great. It’s not their fault that they work for a greedy company.
Thanks for commenting here.
Comment by rich — November 6, 2008 @ 11:52 am
@DonnaMiller, oops, that last answer that I posted to Claude’s attention should have been in answer to you.
Thanks for commenting.
Comment by rich — November 6, 2008 @ 11:53 am
Haha, and GoDaddy wonder why so many people hate them……..
Comment by Simon — November 9, 2008 @ 2:20 am
Stolen website? Never heard of this one before. How bizzare. Dont think anyone would steal my websites
Comment by Andy @ Be Debt Free — November 15, 2008 @ 10:41 am
[...] Daily Blog Tips, Digital Inspiration, Performancing, The Inquistr, The Next Web, TechyShit and LinkMoney gave their full support and spread the word about the hijack. In this instance the hijacker asked [...]
Pingback by How secure is your domain name? — November 25, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
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Pingback by Is There an Email Security Flaw in Google Gmail ? — December 22, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
Shocking!!! That’s what I can say…I too is a victim of this domain stealing. I have my site hosted with IX webhosting, I have regretfully neglected my maintenance for about 2 months and now I came back with nothing to edit. My domain is nowhere to be found and when I made my inquiry via trouble ticket and chat support, I was told that that domain is under Enom Inc. registrar. I’m shocked…really shocked, especially now I’m learning that others are falling victim to this unscrupulous scheme.
What to do? Well I just found out about my situation yesterday and I’m making another attempt to work out with IX webhostings support, after all they’re suppose to protect their customers from hijackers like Enom Inc.
Anyway…I’d like to thank you for this article which I’ve found through Gary Conn’s blog link through a referral from Pot Pie Girl. Great info.
You guys Rock!
Joel “your new fan”
Comment by Joel — January 8, 2009 @ 3:23 am
@Joel,
I am so sorry for your situation. That is such a terrible thing to go through, and now you will have to waste time and money to try to get it back.
Would you please come back and tell us the end results?
I just love how you mapped out your route to this LinkMoney.org blog. LOL
That is very helpful information to know and I thank you, also a big thanks for the nice post.
I wish you the best of luck in retrieving your website.
Rich
Comment by rich — January 8, 2009 @ 3:40 am
just more care about dns
Comment by Ian — February 18, 2009 @ 11:45 am
Ian your point is taken, however the average person does not know some of these things until it is too late. I always “Lock” mine as soon as I register a new domain, but not everyone does. Also in the first case mentioned I believe it was due to a gmail address getting hacked and then the bad guy just signed in and transerred it.
Rich
Comment by rich — February 18, 2009 @ 1:14 pm