Brand impersonation is one popular catalyst of online fraud nowadays, and no other form of cybercrime has become as troublesome to deal with as this one. Impersonation involves hackers or phishers posing as well-known brands. Their intent is to lure unsuspecting users into providing their sensitive data.
Unfortunately, this issue is very widespread, and most business owners and decision-makers fail to protect themselves from this threat. This is generally because they know far too little about cybersecurity, which leads to hacking, lost information, and account freezing.
Fortunately, you can protect your business from malicious third parties by familiarising yourself with brand impersonation.
What Is Brand Impersonation?
Brand impersonation is a type of cyber-phishing attack which seeks to retrieve sensitive information from unsuspecting victims. Hackers do this by using the image of a reputable company as a sort of “cloak” for communication.
Cybercriminals pose as companies that targets would interact with or expect news from. Once emails are received from phishers posing as reliable sources, online consumers are expected to click links after reading messages that emphasise something important such as:
- Email password resets
- Data breaches
- Potential account termination
Why Do You Need to Be Aware of This Issue?
The bottom line of a brand impersonation email is to urge a user to submit their credentials or crucial information by way of a legitimate-looking website. Unfortunately, scammers have made it easy to lure unsuspecting users in by improving the overall look of their websites. Nowadays, they can closely replicate the pages of the organisations they’re impersonating.
The State of Brand Impersonation in 2021
Currently, brand impersonation has become one of the most prominent forms of phishing in the United States. It continues to plague businesses annually, leading to billions of dollars in damages.
Over the years, the problem has become so prevalent to the point where one in every 99 emails being sent across the internet is laced with fraud. At this rate, it’s best to assume that the problem at hand isn’t going to go away anytime soon. Fraudsters will continue to roll out all sorts of different ways to carry out sophisticated attacks that become harder to avoid!
Protecting Your Business from Impersonators
The best way to circumvent losses due to a brand impersonation scam is to know the differences between legitimate and fake emails. When paired with extra care and constant vigilance, knowing what to watch out for will ensure that your business won’t fall prey to such scams.
Apart from self-education, one of the most effective ways to stay protected against brand impersonation is to enlist the services of cybersecurity experts. By getting in touch with a cybersecurity agency like FraudWatch International, you’ll get to utilise services such as email protection and brand monitoring that will protect your business from present and future threats!
One of the most pivotal issues that businesses need to be careful about is brand impersonation. Once you start devising strategies to counteract the problem and improve your knowledge of the subject matter, it will be easier to ensure that you don’t end up running into cybersecurity down the line!
FraudWatch International is an Australian – Global brand protection company that specialises in helping businesses all over the country with our anti-phishing, anti-piracy solutions, and cyber-attack prevention services. Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help keep your business safe online!