What are the risks for website owners who use Russian companies?

Some websites, both with Ukrainian and international domains, are under threat due to their connections to Russian resources. Let's take a look.

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To grow your online business, you need a website. To be quickly found online, you need your own domain name—one that's relevant, apt, and engaging. And to host your website, you need hosting. These two services can be provided by different companies in different countries, which can sometimes confuse website owners.

Literally within the first week after February 24, many entrepreneurs decided to renounce any cooperation with the aggressor country. Over the course of six months of war, this principled position has become paramount for the vast majority of Ukrainian businessmen – they do not want to support the occupiers.

And this, in our opinion, is the only adequate position, since:

• using Russian services = financing the war against Ukraine and bloody crimes;
• storing data on the services of an aggressor country is dangerous;
• The use of domestic providers and internet service providers to promote Ukrainian products and support our country's economy is relevant.

Moreover, abandoning Russian services is a technically necessary step.

Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, few business owners cared about where their company's internet projects were hosted or who managed their domain name. Many used Russian registrars and hosting providers.

Aspects that may affect the operation of the site

Firstly, most Ukrainian and even foreign internet providers block resources and traffic from Russia.

This means that websites hosted on Russian hosting services may be unavailable to users from Ukraine or other countries.

Some websites whose owners believed they were purchasing services from Ukraine were also blocked in this way, as it turned out that the web studio, web designer, or administrator had hosted the website on a Russian resource. There were even cases where a Ukrainian hosting provider used Russian servers to host its users' websites, which was completely unobvious to the client.

SecondlyUkrainian registrars blocked Russian registrars and resellers from accessing Ukrainian domain zones. As with hosting, situations arose where Ukrainian intermediaries creating websites registered domains through Russian registrars. As a result, the website owner was left with a blocked domain, without even understanding the reasons.

Thirdly, and no less on a large scale are Russian contacts in domains.

Each domain contains a set of contact information about the legal entity or individual to whom the domain is registered.

Thus, almost all Ukrainian registrars, as well as many leading domain name registrars around the world, joined the global boycott of Russia, announcing that they will no longer serve Russian users.

Incidentally, when blocking, all domain contacts were taken into account, meaning the address didn't have to be Russian; for example, a Russian phone number was also sufficient grounds for blocking the domain.

Understanding all these aspects, you can answer why the site stopped working, or “it works here, but not there.”

Website relocation

To transfer your website from a Russian company, you need to manage both the domain and hosting services separately:

• The process of transferring a domain from a Russian registrar can vary significantly depending on the domain zone.

For example, for international domains such as .COM, .NET, .BIZ, and others, it's important that the contact email address for the domain is up-to-date so the owner can receive a confirmation request for the domain transfer. Therefore, before transferring a domain, you must ensure you have access to the email address specified as the domain owner's email address and, if necessary, update the domain's contact information with the current registrar.

You will also need to obtain a domain secret code from your current registrar, which you will need to place an order with a new registrar.

The procedure for Ukrainian domains may be different, depending on where the domain is currently being serviced and the specific terms and conditions of that registrar.

There may be other nuances that affect the ability to transfer a domain. For example, the TransferProhibited status, which prohibits the domain transfer, can be changed by the current registrar.

If you don't know where your domain is located, there are WHOIS services available. These services allow you to see the current domain registrar, status, expiration date, and contact information, if it is not hidden from public access.

• When transferring hosting, that is, the content of your site, the situation is different.

In most cases, your current hosting provider's involvement is completely unnecessary. The main thing you need is to retrieve a full backup of your website. This can usually be done independently from your website's control panel.

Next, you need to select and order a hosting service from a provider and deploy your archive. You can do this yourself, engage your system administrator, or use the technical support of your new hosting provider.

The most important thing here is to remember to reconfigure the domain to work with the new hosting in the domain control panel on your registrar's website. And in the hosting settings, specify the domain name. Then all you have to do is wait, because, as we all remember, DNS records in a domain change instantly, but they take effect only after a certain amount of time, as they depend on the internet provider's cache, which can take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days.

• Once the transfer and hosting migration are complete, be sure to check all domain contacts and DNS record settings. If anything related to Russia remains, no one can guarantee the continued proper operation of your resource.

First of all, we recommend that you consult with the new registrar.Support NIC.UAhas extensive experience with a variety of challenges faced by Russian clients when relocating their websites, and can provide expert advice.

Let's be mindful. With just a little effort and a little patience, we can gain confidence in our own business.