Never buy a domain bundled with your hosting package.
Not because it's cheaper. Not because it's less restrictive.
But because it's SOOOO much easier to manage an attack that way.
A site I like (which will remain nameless) just got hit by 2 idiots from London demanding a $60 ransom for the site - they had managed to get the password to the cPanel. I told the site owners they should change which server the domain points to. But they couldn't. Why couldn't they? Because they lost access to the cPanel, and thus lost access to the domain.
And this is why I come to you BEGGING that you NEVER buy a domain as a bundle with a host. If you do, you may end up with the same problem.
My advice on who you should point your domain to? Cloudflare. You can update a DNS record in cloudflare and it will update practically instantly, because of the way cloudflare works as a sort of proxy - it effectively bypasses DNS caching. Thus, when you're under attack, you can simply point your domain to google or even just plain old delete all the records, and render the site useless. Plus, you get DDoS protection and faster sites with cloudflare, which should be good enough reason anyway.
Rendering the site useles is SO much better than leaving the site up and so allowing the attackers access, meaning they can continue to hijack the site, and even steal passwords (of which you should use Salted Hashes to encrypt them, but that's a whole different post). Destroy the domain, and that's one less point of attack, and less chance the attackers will be successful.
Hope this helps someone.
Not because it's cheaper. Not because it's less restrictive.
But because it's SOOOO much easier to manage an attack that way.
A site I like (which will remain nameless) just got hit by 2 idiots from London demanding a $60 ransom for the site - they had managed to get the password to the cPanel. I told the site owners they should change which server the domain points to. But they couldn't. Why couldn't they? Because they lost access to the cPanel, and thus lost access to the domain.
And this is why I come to you BEGGING that you NEVER buy a domain as a bundle with a host. If you do, you may end up with the same problem.
My advice on who you should point your domain to? Cloudflare. You can update a DNS record in cloudflare and it will update practically instantly, because of the way cloudflare works as a sort of proxy - it effectively bypasses DNS caching. Thus, when you're under attack, you can simply point your domain to google or even just plain old delete all the records, and render the site useless. Plus, you get DDoS protection and faster sites with cloudflare, which should be good enough reason anyway.
Rendering the site useles is SO much better than leaving the site up and so allowing the attackers access, meaning they can continue to hijack the site, and even steal passwords (of which you should use Salted Hashes to encrypt them, but that's a whole different post). Destroy the domain, and that's one less point of attack, and less chance the attackers will be successful.
Hope this helps someone.
