As part of an effort to enhance cybersecurity for residents, businesses and other users of its online services, Henrico County general government is moving the domain for its website and email to “.gov.”
Effective July 1, the county’s web address will be henrico.gov and county email addresses will end in @henrico.gov.
Users are encouraged to update their contact lists and web bookmarks to the new domain, although the transition will be seamless. Emails and visitors to the current domain, henrico.us, will be redirected automatically to the .gov address.
The .gov domain is available only to official, U.S.-based government organizations and publicly controlled entities, noted Travis Sparrow, director of the Department of Information Technology.
“The change to henrico.gov will help our residents and customers identify official, trusted information from Henrico County,” Sparrow said. “Visitors to henrico.gov and recipients of an email from @henrico.gov can be confident that the content is authentic Henrico County government information.”
The use of .gov will establish the county’s domain as a top-level government entity, Sparrow said. The new domain also will help the public better recognize the official county website and genuine emails from county staff and avoid phishing attempts and websites that may attempt to impersonate county personnel and offices, he noted.
The web and email domains for Henrico County Public Library and Henrico County Public Schools will not be affected by the change. Those addresses will remain henricolibrary.org and @henricolibrary.org; and henricoschools.us and @henrico.k12.va.us, respectively.
In advance of the general election in November, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI have recommended election offices and state, local and other government entities adopt the .gov domain to reduce impersonation and cybersecurity risks.