What is Domain Hijacking

Domain hijacking or domain theft is the process by which registration of a currently registered domain name is transferred without the permission of its original registrant, generally by exploiting a vulnerability in the domain name registration system.

ICANN imposes a 60-day waiting period between a change in registration information and a transfer to another registrar; this is intended to make domain hijacking more difficult, since a transferred domain is much more difficult to reclaim, and it is more likely that the original registrant will discover the change in that period and alert the registrar. Extensible Provisioning Protocol is used for many TLD registries, and uses an authorization code issued exclusively to the domain registrant as a security measure to prevent unauthorized transfers.