Top Strategies for Preventing Domain Hijacking

What Is Domain Hijacking?

Domain hijacking—the unauthorized takeover of a web domain—lets attackers reroute traffic, impersonate brands, and phish users. Domain hijacking can take place when bad actors manipulate registrar settings such as Domain Name System (DNS) records or contact information.

Hijackers can use stolen domains to conduct a vast array of malicious activities, from redirecting traffic, to impersonating brands and stealing user credentials.

DNS is colloquially known as the “phonebook of the internet”—it translates website urls that humans can read (such as securityscorecard.com) into an IP address that computers can read.

In 2025, domain hijacking is used to:

• Launch phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attacks
• Create cloned login portals to harvest credentials
• Distribute malware via spoofed domains
• Execute supply chain compromise by mimicking trusted vendors

How Domain Hijacking Happens

Attackers use multiple techniques to conduct domain hijacking operations:

• Registrar account compromise: Weak passwords, reused credentials, or lack of MFA enable unauthorized access.
• Social engineering: Attackers impersonate domain owners and convince registrars to make unauthorized changes.
• Expired domain abuse: Neglected domains are purchased and repurposed for malicious activity.
• DNS hijacking: Traffic is redirected through poisoned or intercepted DNS records.
• Domain reseller exploitation: Attackers target vendors or resellers with lax security practices.

Understanding these methods can hels security teams anticipate where controls can fail.

Examples of Domain Hijacking

Examples of domain hijacking abound, and span from malvertising to broad-based DNS hijacking. Here are a few recent examples:

SubdoMailing: Bad actors used 8,000 domains and 13,000 subdomains of trusted companies to run a fraudulent ad campaign to generate fake advertising money in a campaign known as “SubdoMailing,” according to research published in 2024.

Sitting Ducks: In 2024 researchers found that over a dozen Russian-linked actors are conducting so-called “Sitting Ducks” attacks, in which hackers hijack legitimate registered domains at DNS services and run fraudulent campaigns. The attacks exploit poor configuration and insufficient prevention efforts. Past examples of Sitting Ducks attacks have included bomb threats and sextortion campaigns.

These events show that brand impersonation and domain hijacking can take on many forms, and can go undetected at a large scale.

The Risks of a Hijacked Domain

The consequences of a hijacked domain extend far beyond a single point of compromise. Once hijacked, a domain becomes a tool for bad actors’ deception operations and continued malicious activity.

• One of the first and most damaging effects is the loss of email authentication. This can immediately expose an organization to:
  • Business email compromise (BEC)
  • Widespread phishing attacks 
• A compromised domain also opens the door to brand impersonation. Attackers can spin up fraudulent login portals or cloned websites. This can:
  • Erode trust with customers and business partners
  • Lead to credential theft and privacy violations that can carry regulatory implications under frameworks such as GDPR or HIPAA
• Attackers can use the hijacked domain as a foothold for lateral movement across the supply chain:
  • If the domain is linked to a vendor or service provider, its compromise can trigger downstream risk
  • Adversaries can impersonate trusted connections, harvest credentials, or pivot into more secure environments

These risks make proactive domain monitoring and DNS-layer enforcement a critical element of thorough security programs.

Domain Hijacking Prevention Strategies (2025)

Preventing domain hijacking requires layered controls at the registrar, DNS, and email level.

1. Lock Your Domains

• Enable registrar lock (ClientTransferProhibited) to block unauthorized transfers
• Apply domain lock at the registry level for changes that require manual approval

2. Use Domain-Based MFA

• Protect registrar portals with multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Enforce strong password hygiene and device-level access validation

3. Monitor Expiration Risk

• Set domains to auto-renew and track expiration for subsidiaries and marketing teams
• Regularly audit domains registered outside central IT

4. Enable DNSSEC

• Deploy DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) to cryptographically sign DNS data
• Prevent DNS hijacking and man-in-the-middle redirection attempts

5. Enforce Email Authentication Protocols

• Implement DMARC, DKIM, and SPF to validate legitimate senders
• Use DMARC reports to detect spoofed domain detection and phishing attempts
• Prevent email impersonation from hijacked or lookalike domains

6. Centralize Domain Management

• Consolidate registrars across business units
• Use enterprise-grade platforms with audit trails and domain security compliance controls

7. Monitor for Typosquatting and Clones

• Track domains that imitate your brand by using typos or letters in place of numbers and vice versa
• Use certificate transparency logs and threat feeds
• Detect cloned login portals created to phish your users

Together, these practices can shrink the attack surface and reduce risk from both internal lapses and external threats.

Extending Domain Security to the Supply Chain

Attackers don’t just target your domain—they can hijack vendor domains to launch their cyber-operations. Common tactics can include:

• Sending spoofed contracts, invoices, or onboarding emails
• Hosting cloned login portals of common business apps
• Delivering malware under the guise of third-party support

SecurityScorecard’s Supply Chain Detection and Response (SCDR) solution continuously monitors third- and fourth-party domains for risks such as expiring registrations, broken SPF or DMARC configurations, DNS misconfigurations, and infrastructure anomalies. Through its MAX service, SecurityScorecard also enables direct vendor remediation engagement. SecurityScorecard’s Attack Surface Intelligence (ASI) provides clear and dark web data collected and curated by threat researchers.

Visibility can enhance your ability to detect domain-related risks across your ecosystem and help reduce the likelihood of compromise.

Domain Security and Regulatory Compliance

Several frameworks now address domain protection. PCI-DSS 4.0, for instance, requires DMARC implementation as of early 2025. NIST 800-53 includes DNS-related controls.

Domain security is now sometimes audit-critical. But beyond compliance issues, failing to implement secure domain practices could lead to reputational damage, brand impersonation, or phishing campaigns.

Final Takeaway

To prevent domain hijacking, organizations must harden registrar controls, enforce email authentication protocols, monitor for typosquatting, and secure DNS visibility across the external attack surface.

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