A method for using a self-signed digital certificate for establishing a secure connection between an Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) client and a server on a communications network, including: receiving a communicated self-signed certificate from the EPP client; obtaining a unique identifier of the EPP client, the unique identifier associated with a domain name stored in a Domain Name System (DNS); using the unique identifier to access a designated DNS record in a DNS zone of the DNS associated with the domain name; retrieving the copy of the digital certificate from the designated DNS record, the copy of the digital certificate containing a public key of the EPP client bound to the domain name; authenticating the copy of the digital certificate with the communicated self-signed certificate; and receiving a generated session key from the EPP client to establish the secure connection over the communications network with the EPP client.