Domain Industry News

Yesterday afternoon, the Have I Been Pwned? platform added the Epik data breach to its database. In doing so, it announced that more than 15 million email addresses were contained in the data, along with other information like addresses and phone numbers:

New breach: Epik had 180GB of data breached last week including 15M unique email addresses (both customers and scraped WHOIS), names, phone nums, physical addresses, purchases and passwords in various formats. 52% were already in @haveibeenpwned. More: https://t.co/ZxJDbStPht

— Have I Been Pwned (@haveibeenpwned) September 19, 2021

There has been a lot to unpack with this data breach, and more details have been shared on various platforms including a long thread at NamePros and quite a few Twitter accounts. You can search Twitter for hashtags like #EpikFail, #EpikHack, or simply search for Epik to see updates from a wide variety of people who seem to have access to the data.

A short while ago, Epik sent out the email below with links to relevant organizations:

According to multiple news publications, including Gizmodo, Domain Name Wire, Jerusalem Post, and others, there has reportedly been some sort of security breach / hacking at Epik. There is also a lengthy discussion about the incident at NamePros. In that thread, NamePros CTO (Paul) shared some insight about the allegation and offered some general advice about keeping domain registrar accounts as secure as possible.

I received an email this afternoon signed by Epik CEO Rob Monster regarding “an alleged security incident involving Epik.” Although the incident was not confirmed by Epik in the email, there wasn’t a denial either.

The email is below for those who are interested in reading what was sent:

Escrow.com released some sales data from the first half of 2021, and it confirmed what many people have been saying. Domain name (and website) sales transacted via Escrow.com had a big first half of the year. Escrow.com reported that sales growth for “Online” sales, including domain names and websites, grew 77% compared to the first half of 2020.

This figure isn’t all that surprising given the fact that the world was mired in the growing Covid-19 pandemic during the first half of 2020. People are still dealing with challenges related to the pandemic, but online sales have been flourishing. I am actually bit surprised this figure wasn’t higher, but that may be influenced by my own buying and selling activity.

Escrow.com has grown other lines of business in the last year. In fact, motor vehicle sales sale growth of 210% for the first half of 2021 when compared to the same time period in 2020. Other areas of growth mentioned in the Escrow.com were General Merchandise (up 42%), Services (up 37%) and Luxury (up 18%).

In total, Escrow.com transacted $366.7 million in transactions during the first half of 2021. This marks an increase of 73% from the first half of 2020.

Here are the details that were shared with me today:

NameBio is the most comprehensive source of historical domain name sales data. The website was founded in 2006, and the website and database was acquired by Adam Strong in 2010. In 2015, Michael Sumner came on board as a partner, and many new features were launched. In 2019, NameBio began offering a more robust search experience for paying customers.

I recently learned that NameBio changed hands. Adam has retained a minority stake in the business and will remain an advisor with the company. Michael Sumner and Anuj Bahl will continue to operate NameBio, and they have brought on Kevin Ohashi. Financial details about the deal are not being shared.

SquadHelp introduced a unique optional account feature for customers – “Automatic Pulse Checks.” If the customer has not had any account activity for “an extended period” of time, SquadHelp will reach out to a pre-selected beneficiary to offer account assistance in the event it is needed:

New Feature Alert: Automatic Pulse Checks💓

* Add a Beneficiary to your SH Account
* We’ll proactively reach out to them if we detect no account activity for an extended period
* We’ll assist them with portfolio access, fund transfer & more

Learn more:https://t.co/MW3gWLf7Zc

— Squadhelp (@squadhelp) April 27, 2021

This afternoon, Escrow.com announced it surpassed $5 billion worth of transactions closed on its platform. Escrow.com handles escrow services for a variety of products, including vehicles, watches, and of course, domain names.

In announcing the $5 billion milestone, Escrow.com also announced a contest to win a $500 Visa gift card: