Customers engaging with retail brands are now moving online as a primary platform of communication, and the number of them doing so on Social Media is constantly increasing. With the rise of Social Media use globally by consumers and businesses are associated risks.

How Are Cyber-Criminals Threatening Your Business Using Fraudulent Social Media Pages?

Users often follow a link without checking the actual URL it leads them to. Hackers are exploiting the trust users have in well-known brands to trick them into giving sensitive information or downloading dangerous software.

There is no such thing as a spam filter on Social Media: even though users are starting to behave more cautiously regarding the undesired links they receive in their inboxes, they are way less circumspect when it comes to clicking links without second thoughts on Social Media. This is especially true when the links are coming from apparently genuine company pages: at first, cyber-criminals post and share legitimate content to gain followers as well as their trust, then only do they start to post fraudulent content, thus putting unknowing followers at risk and damaging the impersonated business.

Case Studies: Examples of Fraudulent Social Media Pages That FraudWatch International Has Detected

Not a day goes by without our team seeing fraudulent Social Media pages targeting our clients.

An Example:

• A Fake Facebook page is created using a well-known brands name and assets (images/logos/information)
• Fraudsters impersonate the well-known brand to gain credibility and lead users to malicious websites or downloads
• Users unknowingly follow the provided links, believing they are dealing with the legitimate brand
• Malicious websites often trick users into giving away personal/sensitive information, or even downloading malicious software.

The Risks:

• Aggravated customers who are defrauded as a result of these pages
• Damaged brand reputation after being associated with scams
• Monetary repercussions

Being extorted by owners of successful impersonating pages

Example:

FraudWatch International Social Media Protection Service

Brand impersonation is a serious threat, and our team of dedicated professionals will do everything that is in their power in order to take down malicious content to avoid any damage to your reputation and costs to your organisation.

FraudWatch International has developed proprietary monitoring tools to locate any fraudulent social media pages, profiles or groups using our clients branding across a range of social media networks.

Once any fraudulent content has been located FraudWatch International will take measures to contact the relevant party in order to ensure the quickest takedown time. FraudWatch International has been working with various social media providers around the world for many years, our processes are tried and tested and guarantee fast results.

FraudWatch International’s Social Media Protection service benefits for our clients include, but are not limited to:

• The protection of your brand on Social Media channels and the Internet,
• The minimization of fraudulent and/or illegitimate content on Social Media channels and the Internet,
• The assurance that only genuine and legitimate content is delivered to your audience.

How to Protect Your Own Business from Fraudulent Social Media Pages

The best method to stop your customers from being misled by fraudulent Social Media pages is to ensure they know where to find your legitimate page. You can easily show which accounts are legitimate by “Verifying” the account. This will normally add a small badge (most commonly a ‘tick’) next to your page name. Each Social Media platform will have a slightly different method of doing so, but this method normally entails providing evidence that the page belongs to the organisation. This will make it easy for customers to find the legitimate Social Media pages and drastically reduce the impact of fraudulent Social Media pages.

Because cyber-criminals count most on their victims’ trust and naivety, their attacks only work when the victims believe they are dealing with the legitimate page; the most effective weapon in combatting this is to ensure the customers are aware of the risk and know how to avoid it. This can be done by informing customers on the existence of these fraudulent pages and explaining how to find your legitimate page.

FraudWatch International’s Social Media Protection service takes aim directly at the fraudulent Social Media pages. Our monitoring systems detect the fraudulent pages almost as soon as they are set up and our industry-leading takedown times ensure these pages pose as little a threat as possible to your customers and your brand.

Contact us today to find out more!