Safely Hand Off DNS Editing to Contractors (Cloudflare & Route 53)

Why DNS access is high impact

A rushed change can break email, APIs, or your entire site. Also, DNS changes are easy to spoof via phishing—so treat invites and links like credentials.

Principles to apply

• Least privilege: grant DNS-edit rights only for the relevant zone (no account-wide admin).
• Change windows: schedule edits with a rollback plan and the ability to revert TTL-shortened records quickly.
• Backups: export the zone before edits and store it safely (not in email threads).

Minimal, safe workflow

1. Invite the contractor with the smallest role that works (e.g., Cloudflare: Zone DNS permissions; AWS: IAM policy scoped to that hosted zone).
2. Verify the invite by phone/known channel before clicking. Habit guide: Verify Links Like a Pro.
3. Prep TTLs for affected records (lower them hours in advance to enable fast rollback).
4. Document changes (who, what, when, and why) and keep a copy of old values.

Offboarding & audits

• Remove access at project end and rotate any related secrets (API tokens, keys). See: Employee Offboarding.
• Quarterly reviews: ensure only current zones are granted and that roles aren’t over-privileged.

Useful external references

• Cloudflare: Account roles & permissions 🔗
• AWS Route 53: Access control overview 🔗

Related reading

Registrar-level precautions: Share Domain Registrar Access Safely

Incident playbook if a record goes wrong: The Simple Incident Playbook for Leaked Passwords

Safer secret delivery (API tokens): The Safe Way to Share Passwords in 2025 (No Email)

Bottom line

Scope roles to one zone, verify invites, plan change windows, and keep backups handy. That’s how DNS handoffs avoid downtime.

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