A product brand is one of the greatest assets a company can have, and needs to be protected accordingly. With eCommerce on the rise and companies continuously increasing their online presence, cybercriminals are taking advantage of this and using brandjacking to steal the product brand of established companies.
Brandjacking, where cybercriminals forge a company’s digital assets (including logos, websites, emails, and social media accounts), often results in major brand damage, loss of sales and relevant data, and reduced customer trust. There are several methods bad actors use to impersonate a company’s identity, but some of the most common are domain spoofing, social media impersonation, and phishing emails.
Domain spoofing is when a cybercriminal is able to use a domain name that’s similar to a target company’s domain and create a website that looks exactly like the original. By directing potential customers to the fraudulent website, cybercriminals are able to steal their personal information and money. Scammers also sometimes impersonate a company’s social media channels to direct people to those fraudulent websites, and have even been known to impersonate a company’s executives to spread rumors and false information. With phishing emails, cybercriminals create emails that look exactly like a company’s typical communications to capture the personal information of the victims that follow the email’s directions. Criminals often use a variety of methods combined to add legitimacy to their fraudulent websites, making it easier for them to fool their victims.
Edgeworth’s cross-functional Intelligence team has developed several proactive brand protection procedures to protect our clients from ever dealing with a successful brandjacking attempt. Edgeworth Security uses cutting edge open source intelligence techniques to monitor both the Surface web (social media, industry sites, and news) and the Deep web for mentions of our clients’ brands and domains to detect possible risks and prevent brandjacking situations. These open source intelligence techniques can clue in our agents to any possible phishing email attempts that are being planned on the Deep web, where they can then take action against those attempts. If a domain spoofing or social media impersonation attempt is detected, our agents can begin the process of shutting down the counterfeit website or accounts, providing all necessary research and proof of brand ownership on the legitimate company’s behalf. Our agents will also inform all relevant parties of the brandjacking attempt, including the client and any possible resellers, agents, and franchisees.
Having a proactive intelligence team already preventing brandjacking in the first place is the best option, but if your company has recently experienced a successful brandjacking attempt, Edgeworth can still help mitigate the damages to your company’s finances and reputation. If you think you or your company could be at risk of a brandjacking attempt, give Chad a call at (703) 939-5804 to chat with an Intelligence expert today.
To learn more about Edgeworth’s full-service open source intelligence solution, head to our Intelligence page.
