Online Brand Hijacking Gets Real
3 mins
Incidents of online fraud and brand hijacking have increased with the grand-scale eruption of online networking and eCommerce. It’s fertile ground for fraudsters. Online conversations and transactions are happening in a dynamic and multi-directional environment where a brand’s reputation is influenced by third parties on social media, blogs, forums, eCommerce shops and direct messaging platforms. When they aren’t monitored and there is no active engagement by brands in these transactions and discussions, scammers exploit them.
Let’s look at how it happens.
Online presence makes brands vulnerable to online fraud
Any online presence, from a website and eCommerce shop to social media pages a social media page or direct messaging platforms like WhatsApp, serves as a customer-facing front that can be intercepted and misused by scammers.
The most prevalent types of online fraud are:
- Email and social media phishing scams
- Spoofed websites
- Copied social media pages
- Fake pay-per-click advertising campaigns
- Online identity theft
- Impersonating employees and executives
- Domain squatting
- Trading proprietary information on the dark web
- Sale of counterfeit products
- Digital asset takeover
Online fraudsters’ exploits are evolving
A brand’s digital footprint is not easily controlled. The law is also slow to develop and rules to protect brand owners from online fraud are sluggishly implemented. Scammers know this and work around the clock to take advantage of the loopholes in cyber law. This means that new techniques and attacks emerge every day. t has become one of the most critical success factors for any business in a world where change has become the only constant.”
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Scammers are always prowling. Even a lowkey buzz generated by small-scale promotions or advertisements is enough to pique a cyber criminal’s interest.
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In fact, any online attention could motivate a cyber criminal to produce a counterfeit product or a fake campaign to steal money from companies and their customers.
Brands aren’t monitoring their digital assets
Without active monitoring and engagement, it is impossible to control online conversations or transactions. On average, it takes security teams 287 days to identify and contain a data breach.
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It has become critical to monitor the deepest, darkest corners of the dark web where cybercriminals share or sell proprietary, personal information.
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This includes websites, forums and chatrooms that are channels for data exposure, information leakage and corporate espionage.
Is online fraud a problem for small businesses?
Every business that has an online presence, including new businesses and industry veterans, small labels and huge corporations, is at risk. Estimates are that cyber crime costs the world’s economy about $6 trillion annually. The damages caused by online fraud run wide and deep.
From short-term damages and disruptions of online fraud like:
- Financial losses
- Security breaches
- Data leakage
- Digital assets takeover, and
To long-term damages, such as:
- Severe financial loss (bankruptcy)
- Eroded reputation
- Business disruption
- Decline in partner relations
- Market share decrease
How can online fraud be stopped?
With an online brand security solution that hunts and disrupts threats and misuse of brand assets before they become a problem. One that watches everywhere that is humanly not possible to watch all the time, including online marketplaces, social media sites like Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp and Telegram, apps on Android and iOS, web domains, websites and chatrooms on the internet and dark web.
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You need proactive alerts about the misuse of logos and slogans, trademark infringements, employee impersonations, grey market sales, and social media scams.
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Become confident in your digital transformation. Protect your online intellectual property.
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