Has my domain been hacked?

[Jake Hoffman]

Any help for this problem I'm facing would be greatly appreciated.

This happened to my mom yesterday.

When trying to go to the website for her business, she just got a generic landing page instead of her site.

When she told me I immediately checked the whois information for her domain and found it is now owned by a random person in Estonia instead of the company who manages her website in South Africa. And it's now available for sale as a premium domain for $4000!

I've been reading and following discussions on namepros for about a year now, deciding whether to start buying and selling domains, and have heard of some scam tactics for tricking you into transfer of ownership, but is it also possible for your domain ownership to be "hacked" and transferred? Or perhaps for the company managing the website to have been hit by some virus?

Sorry I'm still pretty new to this, and still learning terminology, and what sort of threats exist in the domain industry. Any advice on what might have happened, what to research, questions to ask the company website company or perhaps a better forum for these questions would be so much appreciated!

Thanks for your time
Dr Jake

TLDR: My mother's business website is now magically just a generic landing page, owned by a random person in Estonia, and for sale for $4000. What happened?? Please help!

 

[weblord]

yes it was hacked or domain hijacked. report it at once.

pm'd you some links where to report it.

 

[soidav]

You should contact your registrar right now and report this issue.

If you would provide us with the name, we could tell you better what exactly happened.

Possibly she didn't renewed the domain name.

 

[weblord]

i think it all started when you click on an unrecognized link in your email instead of going to the website itself.
and you fell for it and did the transfer yourself.

I've been reading and following discussions on namepros for about a year now, deciding whether to start buying and selling domains, and have heard of some scam tactics for tricking you into transfer of ownership, but is it also possible for your domain ownership to be "hacked" and transferred? Or perhaps for the company managing the website to have been hit by some virus?

 

[BlueprintMedia]

Hi,
Did your mom forget to pay the yearly renewal fee on the domain?
Just recently I purchased a domain that had expired (5letter.com).
The previous owner failed to respond to Godaddy's renewal emails and the domain expired.
Well, she contacted me furious as she seen her domain on my landing page with a FOR SALE price tag of $3,000 dollars.
Long story short, after some negotiating, she had no choice to purchase "her" domain back from me.

To me, this sounds like a similar situation that your mom might be in..

If that's not the case and you strongly feel that your mom paid the yearly renewal fee, then the best way is to contact the registrar that your mom was using to host her domain with.
The former registrar can provide more in depth details as to:
-Did the domain expire?
-Was it transferred maliciously?
-Were the NameServers changed without her consent?
If the former registrar finds that fraud was involved in the transfer of the domain, then the registrar can ask for the domain to be returned.
If she failed to renew the name and let the domain expire, then your mom will have to negotiate with the new owner to obtain her old domain back.

Regards,
Jaime

 

[golan]

More likely no renewal in time; less possibly something was hacked. But post the domain here or send it to anyone of us in private.

 

[weblord]

yes we're here to help you out, just give the domain or direct message it to one of us so we can investigate accurately or we're running out of speculation that fast.

Any help for this problem I'm facing would be greatly appreciated.

This happened to my mom yesterday.

When trying to go to the website for her business, she just got a generic landing page instead of her site.

When she told me I immediately checked the whois information for her domain and found it is now owned by a random person in Estonia instead of the company who manages her website in South Africa. And it's now available for sale as a premium domain for $4000!

I've been reading and following discussions on namepros for about a year now, deciding whether to start buying and selling domains, and have heard of some scam tactics for tricking you into transfer of ownership, but is it also possible for your domain ownership to be "hacked" and transferred? Or perhaps for the company managing the website to have been hit by some virus?

Sorry I'm still pretty new to this, and still learning terminology, and what sort of threats exist in the domain industry. Any advice on what might have happened, what to research, questions to ask the company website company or perhaps a better forum for these questions would be so much appreciated!

Thanks for your time
Dr Jake

TLDR: My mother's business website is now magically just a generic landing page, owned by a random person in Estonia, and for sale for $4000. What happened?? Please help!

 

[creataweb]

Expired probably.

 

[weblord]

silence means yes?

Expired probably.

 

[LarryDomain]

*fakenews*

 

[Jake Hoffman]

Thank you for all your replies. I have passed on the info and waiting to here back from the company managing the website whether they let the domain expire. Will update when I know more!

 

[urlurl]

most likely the case, always best to manage your own names.

 

[Name Trader]

most likely the case, always best to manage your own names.

Even that can also be a problem if you go into a sudden coma for x months or years.

 

[weblord]

i remember i forgot to renew one of my best kept domain and one of the members here helped me by renewing them for me and charging it afterwards, at least here we know that we are one big family.

 

[Monarchies]

Refer to the replies above, hope she gets it back man!

 

[weblord]

Doc, i know in your profession you are a busy man, let someone handle it for you. You can take me as your assistant in the future.

i hope you regain it back

Thank you for all your replies. I have passed on the info and waiting to here back from the company managing the website whether they let the domain expire. Will update when I know more!

 

[golan]

the company managing the website

There was a company lol....

 

[weblord]

i guess the doc forgot to renew the domain, forgot to update this thread and I hope doc will not forget his patients.

 

[Jake Hoffman]

Dear weblord. Just so we are all on the same page, the website is managed entirely by a third party company, and is my mother's website, not mine. I'm posting on her behalf.

I'm still in government practice and thus don't have a need for a personal website currently.

I haven't updated this thread yet as we have still not heard anything from the company managing the site, but suspecting they may have let renewal lapse.

I will post an update as soon as I have more information.

In the meantime you can be assured that blood, sweat and tears are going into the management of my patients.

Kindly,
Dr J

 

[weblord]

thanks for the assurance.

Dear weblord...
In the meantime you can be assured that blood, sweat and tears are going into the management of my patients.

Kindly,
Dr J

 

[Jake Hoffman]

i remember i forgot to renew one of my best kept domain and one of the members here helped me by renewing them for me and charging it afterwards, at least here we know that we are one big family.

Thank you, yes, agreed 100% that one should manage their own domains. That's why I've been learning about it before I make my own site. Unfortunately my mom is not quite as tech-savvy and so has needed to hire someone to manage this for her!

And yes, the namepros community is by far the most helpful I've come across so far! So thank you to everyone for the advice

Kindly,
Dr J

 

[IMEZI]

i remember i forgot to renew one of my best kept domain and one of the members here helped me by renewing them for me and charging it afterwards, at least here we know that we are one big family.

so you were share your account with your friends? when something happen with that account who will responsible for?

 

[weblord]

good question. im not sharing account with friends, i have my own account.
when something happen, the blame's on me of course.

im just telling a story where i forgot to renew one of my domain and it's my name domain and one of the member here renewed it expecting nothing in return, of course as long as i pay it or that member is not expecting something since i can always say no, but he risked his registration fee to renew it.

 

[IMEZI]

good question. im not sharing account with friends, i have my own account.
when something happen, the blame's on me of course.

im just telling a story where i forgot to renew one of my domain and it's my name domain and one of the member here renewed it expecting nothing in return, of course as long as i pay it or that member is not expecting something since i can always say no, but he risked his registration fee to renew it.

And how could any other RENEW your domain while you didnt share your own account???

 

[weblord]

i forgot to renew it, someone's been monitoring. i think it's williamrnabaza.com or the other one without the initial. and he said he renewed it for me. to make long story short i still got the other one without the initial.