Make Use Of Loses Their Domain

Nov 4, 2008 by Matt | Posted in Domains 5 Comments

The popular tech blog Make Use Of, which normally resides at MakeUseOf.com, has lost their domain. At least for now.

On November 2, somewhere late in the day I assume, one of the bloggers at MakeUseOf.com discovered that the domain had been parked. When the editor-in-chief, Aibek Esengulov, of the blog became aware of the problem, it was apparent that the domain had been hijacked.

The cracker transfered MakeUseOf.com from GoDaddy to NameCheap by somehow getting into the site administrator’s GMail account and requesting a domain transfer from there. Currently Aibek is trying to get the domain back. It is worth a great deal, considering Make Use Of is a very established blog with over 20,000 subscribers and plenty of inbound links, not to mention the fact that without the domain no one can get to the blog really.

Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon. You can follow the news by visiting the Make Use Of Teporary Blog.

  • nhoss2

    they got it back didnt they?

  • http://www.webmaster-source.com Matt

    Well, well, it looks like they finally managed to get it back. When I wrote the post last night, the domain had been deactivated by NameCheap, pending negotiations. They didn’t have it back under their control yet. Well, anyways, I’m glad they got it back.

  • http://www.kastedstudios.com Dan Lee

    Did we rule out the possibility of it just expiring and someone picking it up?

  • http://www.webmaster-source.com Matt

    Yes, Dan. It was actually stolen out from under them. It happened similarly to the David Airey incident awhile back, though this time around we don’t know how the GMail account was compromised (no apparent vulnerability, but the password was acquired by the cracker).

  • http://www.premiumsafelist.com Publicidad Gratis

    Wow, i didn’t know such thing could be done.So this means anyone can loose his domain?Regards..