Namecheap Issues “Urgent Security Warning”

It’s Labor Day here in the US, so it’s not a great day for companies to share important news, but it is important that you see this Namecheap security warning, even if you do not use the company as your domain name registrar. This issue seems like it has the potential to impact domain investors as well as others who own domain names. It may also be impacting other accounts as well.

From a blog post on the Namecheap company blog, entitled “Urgent security warning that may affect all internet users,” the company stated:

Back in August, The Register reported that the largest ever quotient of email addresses, usernames and passwords had been put together by groups of Russian hackers. You can read their full report on this here.

These hackers collected this data over many months, gaining access to these user credentials through vulnerable/poorly secured databases and backdoors/malware installed on insecure computers around the world.

Overnight, our intrusion detection systems alerted us to a much higher than normal load against our login systems. Upon investigation, we determined that the username and password data gathered from third party sites, likely the data identified by The Register (i.e. not Namecheap) is being used to try and gain access to Namecheap.com accounts.

Namecheap shared more information about this potential issue, and the company also shared information about what it is doing to help its customers. I think it is critical that you read the blog post in its entirety and perhaps you can use this quiet day to be sure your domain name accounts are securely protected as best as possible.

Namecheap is one of the largest domain name registrars, and the company warned that this “may affect all internet users.” I would imagine that something like this could be happening at other domain name registrars, too. It may also happen to email service providers, domain parking accounts, aftermarket website accounts, and other private accounts. This is the primary reason why I am sharing this warning with you rather than simply retweeting or posting something socially. It’s easy to brush it off as something that will impact others, but that may not be true.

At the bottom of the blog post, Namecheap offers some helpful security advice that should be heeded whether you use Namecheap or not. This certainly seems like it could have major implications for all of us, so please be sure your domain name accounts are secure. Please read Namecheap’s urgent blog post as soon as you have an opportunity.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

7 COMMENTS

  1. I was over at Namecheap.com about 5 hours ago and Right Off the start at the “Log In” something just did not feel right — #1 I have and “old & favorite” Not very good password” – #2 At Namecheap I Logged in my “easy” password and it kept rejecting (a number of times) the Login in their Standard Home Page sign-in box in the Upper left Corner — and doing a re-direct to another Page where the Log-in box was in the Center of (Hopefully) their page — which i did not use because it has did this once or twice in the past 4 weeks.

    So my plan was to simply take 2 or 3 minutes simply copy a quick list of my domains and get out of there — This took a Total of at least 6 or 7 times of having my — Browser Crash — just as I was going to hit the Print Button — Right after the Print Setup was OK … I left “2” detailed Crash report’s Messages for the this browser company which does a really great follow-ups on this kind of problem…

    I have not been with Namecheap.com — very long But I Really Like their Company – Their Website – And Their Simple and Very Good Customer Service…
    Right from the Start you could tell their “Security & Honesty” was a Major Priority for Namecheap Customers.

    Thanks Elliot for Catching and Printing this excellent information — I did not see their Blog Post on it…

  2. This is rich coming from Namecheap. From my experience their support staff are lazy, unhelpful and disagreeable – to the point of being antagonistic. Rather than help you with issues, the support staff send inflammatory emails back to you. I have never experienced this with any other registrar. I’m convinced the attitude of Namecheap support staff is a reflection of management’s policy of how they want staff to deal with domain name owners. The support staffs’ unwillingness to help – and what appears to be their complete disregard for clients – prompted me to move hundreds of my domains out of Namecheap. Now Namecheap comes out and pretends it is domain owners’ best friend. Rubbish! This is a marketing ploy to get you to move your domains across to them because, security-wise, they are on the ball. Don’t fall for it!

  3. Uhm, Pat W, have you ever heard of the English language? Look it up!
    It hurts my brain trying to understand your incoherent blabber. I’m sure you’re not any brighter in your own language as well, since you’ve never heard of a comma ” , ” , a full stop ” . ” or a semi-colon ” ; ”

    Namecheap is one of the best registrars around, if not THE BEST. I’ve been with them for over 2 years now and trust me, I know what I’m saying: I’ve had questions, problems and contacted support without any worries. They’ve always responded incredibly quickly (even in 5 seconds ~ live chat support) and have always went the extra mile to make sure I’m one happy customer.

    I’ve registered, transferred in and out of them and they still are my favorite registrar. (Hey, transfers were significantly cheaper at name.com and namesilo.com even if the namecheap support person was nice to give me one good renewal discount after I asked them to – Whois Privacy at .99 instead of $2.88 … a total discount of around 12% is more than reasonable, but I’ve found a way to get 36% discount by transferring to name.com)

    I bet you never heard of 2-Factor Authentication (password + sms/call code). Namecheap has it and without your phone, no one can login unauthorized!

    And no, English is not my native language either. It’s not even an official language here in my country.

  4. Went to Namecheap last night to log in, and had all kind of problems.

    over and over their log screen kept refusing my password, which was
    accurate of course — this shappened over and over until finally
    of course I got locked out, and then ended up having to change my
    password as well as contact customer service.

    I am not impressed at all with the direction that namecheap has been
    going in the last few months. Their site RIGHT NOW looks like it was
    designed and developed by a teenager with bad programming skills.
    and now security and log in issues plus a data breach all just are
    making me want to run from this registry which I once thought at one
    time to be one of the best in the business.

    It’s truly unbelievable how these huge internet companies as soon as
    they get big and make alittle money seem to forget their recipe for success almost immediately and start making detrimental changes that
    ends up costing them customers. Frankly, the deal with namecheap is
    so bad right now I think their developers are working for Godaddy at
    this point lol

    • Their site RIGHT NOW looks like it was
      designed and developed by a teenager with bad programming skills.

      Even other registrars such as Go Daddy, Dynadot, Name.com and Network Solutions use similar designs. I forgot the term, but it has something to do with catering to the tastes of *majority* of users (at least, based on whatever studies and tracking the registrar uses).

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

Video: How Anime.com was Acquired

1
I heard the Anime.com domain name had been recently acquired, but I knew nothing about it. Anime is a a style of Japanese animation,...

Negotiating Like Double Down Video Poker

0
When I was 18, I went on a Royal Caribbean cruise with my family. It was the first time I was able to gamble...

Spaceship Now Offering Sedo MLS Fast Transfer

2
Spaceship Founder Richard Kirkendall announced that Sedo MLS Fast Transfer capabilities are now available for domain names registered at Spaceship: Sedo MLS fast transfer for...

Sedo CMO Christian Voss Announces Departure

3
This morning on LinkedIn, Sedo's Chief Marketing Officer Christian Voss announced he is leaving the company. Christian began his tenure at the company as...

Falcons Acquires Falcons.com via Saw.com

1
Falcons.com is an exceptional one word .com domain name that has long been owned by Future Media Architects (FMA). Like other domain names owned...