Your Whole Business is Held Hostage by One Login

 

It’s Not the Smart Hackers. It’s the Simple Mistake.

We often spend our time tackling big IT challenges—server migrations, disaster recovery, and network overhauls. We fix big IT problems every day, but the worst disasters aren't caused by tricky computer attacks. They are caused by one thing that is terrifyingly simple: a mistake by a person that locks you out of your own business.

This all comes down to your Domain Name Registration. That small, yearly bill is the main key to everything you do online. If you lose control of that login, your whole digital business goes silent. Your website, all your emails, your sales system—they all stop because of a missed payment or a password one person forgot.

This is the Small Mistake, Big Bill—the minimum cost of fixing a total emergency that should never, ever happen.

One Forgotten Password = Zero Business Days.

Everything your business does online is tied to one single login for your domain company. If only one person has that key, your business is one forgotten phone or one day off away from a complete and sudden shutdown.

This single point of failure is terrifyingly common:

• The Worker Who Quit and Locked the Doors: We once watched a massive transportation client spend two agonizing days completely offline because the employee who managed the domain registrar account had quit. They had no backup, and recovering the account was a grueling process of proving ownership—a scenario that had the CEO talking about insurance claims.

• The Single User Trap: We recently dealt with a real estate firm that suddenly went dark. Their website vanished, their email stopped cold. The culprit? A basic credit card renewal for their domain registration failed, and the only person who could log in to fix the payment was gone. Whether it's a departed employee or just an inaccessible one, relying on one person's phone or memory for critical system access means your business is always one missed call away from absolute crisis.

Getting control of a domain back means a long, stressful process of proving ownership to the domain company—a delay that no business can afford.

Our Plan is to Make Your Digital Setup Team-Safe

Our job is to create systems that make these total lockouts impossible. This means we stop relying on just one person and set up a strong, team-based access that cannot be broken by a simple human error.

1. Cloudflare = Safe Sharing

We move your important domain setup to safe, flexible tools like Cloudflare.

• Less Risk: Most normal domain companies make you share your main password with any vendor who needs access—a huge safety risk. We remove that danger.

• Team Control: Cloudflare lets you safely share access. This means we can manage your DNS and fix urgent issues like a failed payment without needing the main password to your account.

We also use this move to put complicated setups (like having your domain and your DNS in two different places) onto one safe tool. This makes fixing problems much easier.

2. Guard the Key For the Whole Team

If a main password must be used, we make sure it is protected from being lost:

• Better Security Codes (2FA): We get rid of the unsafe security codes sent by text message (called 2FA) and move the access to secure apps that the whole team can use, like Bitwarden. This means the keys are held by the support team, not just by one person's cell phone.

Safety Is Better Than Stress

This is not a cost; it is the cheapest, best insurance policy you can buy.

The minimum cost to fix a locked domain and get service back is about $250 in labor for Interlock IT. By spending that small amount before a crisis hits, you stop the huge, unrecoverable costs of two days of lost sales, losing customer trust, and the pain of a business shutdown.

At Interlock IT, we make sure the safety of your domain—the most important small detail of your whole online business—is perfect. Because the most important work in IT is often the work you never even notice.

Ask yourself now: If the person who set up your company’s domain could not be reached, could your IT team log in and fix a payment problem?If the answer is "No," your business is in danger, and it's not a question of if, but when, you will shut down.

Contact us today.

The Last 20%: Why Interlock IT Sweats the Small Stuff (Like Your Domain Name Security)

 We often spend our time tackling big IT challenges—server migrations, disaster recovery, and email flow. However, we know that in business, just like in any complex project, it’s the last 20% of the work, the small, often-overlooked details, that truly defines quality and earns client trust.

And one of the most critical, yet frequently neglected, "small details" is the security and management of your domain name.

What’s in a Domain Name?

Your domain name—like yourcompany.com—is the internet's front door. When a client types that address, a crucial, silent process known as DNS (Domain Name Service) begins. DNS is the internet's directory; it translates the name into a numerical address (IP address) so browsers can find your server.

The Technical Insight

When analyzing domains, we look at who manages what. For example, for interlock.ws, the registration is with GoDaddy.com, but the name servers are with Cloudflare. This is a great demonstration of a key rule: you can choose a separate, specialized provider to manage your name servers for better performance and security, even if your domain is registered elsewhere.

Since the entire internet relies on it, your DNS is a prime target for hacking, where criminals try to redirect your customers to a malicious, fake website. This is why we focus heavily on two things: Secure Access and Reliable Providers.

Security Tip: Cloudflare Advantage

Our experience has shown the value of specialized DNS providers like Cloudflare:

• Free Protection: They offer essential basic DNS services for free, including high-level security like DNSSEC. DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) is a suite of extensions that uses digital signatures to verify that the DNS data you receive is authentic and hasn't been tampered with. This effectively protects your clients from spoofing and cache poisoning attacks.

• The Secure Access Problem: Many standard registrars often require you to give a vendor (like us!) your primary domain account login to manage your records. This is a massive security risk. Cloudflare solves this by letting us manage the DNS records securely without ever touching or compromising your main, high-value domain account login.

The High Cost of Lost Access

Here’s a common, costly scenario we frequently see:

1. Lost Credentials: Clients often lose access to their domain registrar and DNS accounts due to staff turnover or poor documentation.

2. Failure to pay the renewal invoice on time leading to a shut down 

3. Crisis Mode: When access is lost, you can't fix mission-critical problems like email outages (affecting Google Workspace/Microsoft 365) or major website downtime.

4. The Fix-It Fee: Recovering or migrating a domain from scratch is complex, stressful, and expensive. Even a standard migration fix typically costs $250 for two hours of labor, with complex cases (like those involving numerous domains) costing significantly more.

By proactively ensuring your credentials are secure and your DNS is on a flexible, stable platform, we prevent this expensive headache before it even starts.

It’s the Last 20% That Earns Your Referral

The philosophy guiding our service is simple: customer satisfaction isn't just about handling a big emergency; it’s about flawless execution.

• Preventing Painful Moments: We know that a client remembers the pain of an unpatched hole in the ceiling or a small defect left unfixed. In IT, that means saving you from the $250 migration fee because we proactively set up a robust, easy-to-manage domain infrastructure.

• Driving Trust: By eliminating these small, painful moments and ensuring all systems are secure and documented, we earn not just your business, but your referral.

That attention to the "last 20%" of detail—including the technical security of your domain—is the Interlock IT difference.

Do you know who has access to your domain registrar? If you’re not sure, let us perform a quick, no-obligation check—it can save you significant time and money down the road. Contact us today.