Several months ago, Stevan Lieberman, an intellectual property attorney in Washington DC, published an article about domain name theft. In the article, Stevan offered some practical advice about how to recover a domain name following a theft. The article was (and is) timely given the amount of stolen domain names I have heard about of late.
This morning, someone commented on Stevan’s article to discuss a domain name that was allegedly stolen from his GoDaddy account. Here is what the commenter had to say:
“My domain cjml.com was just stolen. I have had it registered with godaddy since March of 2000. I received emails from godaddy on Thurs 11/19 for change of account/change of registrant. Emails said if I did not do this or it was in error to contact them within 15 days at undo@godaddy. I sent an email that day saying it was in error and I did not authorize any change. I called them and they said someone had accessed my account and made changes. Then sent me a dispute transfer link. Later @undo sent an email to submit a form to changeupdate.com which I did, the form requires information and scanning a copy of id/drivers license. I thought great, that will prove it’s mine. Also up till then the whois still showed me as registrant and contact. Then on Sat 11/21 another email from godaddy saying contact information for cjml.com. I checked my account and the domain wasn’t there, then checked whois and found someone else’s name listed. Again called godaddy and was told, yes looks like they have successfully stolen your domain, and there’s nothing they could do about it, I’d have to find a lawyer and try to take legal action to try to get the domain back. Thanks for nothing godaddy.
I don’t know how this happened, nothing else seems to be hacked, my emails or 2 other domains. I don’t click on links in emails. I have changed all passwords. What else can I do to get it back? What can Verisign do? Or ICAAN?”
Stolen domain names continues to be a major problem in the domain space. Enabling 2 factor authentication on domain registrar accounts can be an important safeguard in preventing domain theft. In addition, enabling 2FA on associated email accounts is also important. Finally, do not click on links within emails that are purportedly from ICANN or a domain registrar, as this may be a phishing attempt used to steal login credentials.
Hopefully this commenter is able to work with GoDaddy or an attorney like Steven to regain control of the domain name.
Hope you get your domain back, this is getting all to common, something needs to be done to prevent this.
Did you have the 2 factor security applied?
Did you not read past the headline, or aren’t familiar with the use of quote marks?
Gosh, it appears to have been stolen by somebody in China!
I have helped in dozens of recoveries but as of late I have helped in no less than 7 LLL.com returns since August.
There is a process and the fact the rar’s know me well in this niche it has been a great help. I may add GD is one of if not the best out there, them and MelbourneIT, top notch!
If the timeline and actions provided by the owner of cjml.com are correct, then Godaddy’s conduct is inexcusable.
@Josh, I am not sure what exactly went on with that guy but something doesn’t add up to me. I got to this line…”I don’t know how this happened, nothing else seems to be hacked, my emails or 2 other domains. I don’t click on links in emails. I have changed all passwords. What else can I do to get it back? What can Verisign do? Or ICAAN?” and the bell started going off stronger.
That is usually a good sign something is off, red flag(s).
I looked into this yesterday when Elliot reached out to me and it had already been handled by the department we have that looks into these things. We have a process that works well and protects people and systems in place to return stolen domains. This name was locked immediately after he contacted us while we investigated and waited for his responses. I am glad we were able to return the domain name to him and echo the main concerns in this article which are:
Domain theft something you should take preventative steps to avoid such as using 2 factor authentication and contact the registrar immediately if you notice something changed in your account that you did not initiate. I run through a whole list of best practices here:https://www.namepros.com/blog/how-safe-are-your-domain-names.887391/