Using online services safely

Many organisations buy and manage a public domain name for their online presence, including website and email addresses. For example, the NCSC uses ‘ncsc.gov.uk ’. Some cloud services encourage, or even require, that you have one registered when using their service.

When you have a domain name registered, a provider may ask you to prove you control it (for instance, if you ever contact them for support in recovering access to their service). Attackers may try to gain control of your domain name to hijack your websites, email accounts, and other services that use it. So it is critical that you keep your domain secure. With this in mind:

1. If your public domain name was set up with a personal email account, you should change this so that it is now managed by an account under your organisation’s control (such as a work email account).
2. Ensure you protect the account used to manage your domain name by following our guidance on Securing your users' accounts and Protect your most powerful accounts.