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Complete Guide to Business Impersonation and How to Tackle it

Complete Guide to Business Impersonation and How to Tackle it

illustration of a phishing attack

To protect a business, you need to do more than keep your content and services safe. In today’s digital age, scammers can reap the benefit of your company’s reputation. Impersonation is a cybersecurity risk that harms a company’s reputation and raises financial concerns for its stakeholders. Due to the sheer number and sophistication of approaches, internal security personnel cannot handle this challenge alone.

According to new data from UK Finance, the frequency of impersonation fraud cases had gotten twice as worse in the first quarter of 2021 than the previous year. During the first quarter of 2021, cybercriminals stole £129.4 million from victims due to these schemes. Almost 15,000 impersonation fraud incidents were reported at the same time in 2020, resulting in a theft of £57.9 million.

Moreover, since 2011, cybercrime has cost the worldwide economy over $13 billion, according to the FBI’s Internet Crimes Report 2020. Attacks perpetrated under false pretences have cost over $5 billion to the global economy.

This shows how proactive cybercriminals are and how much financial losses companies have to face each year, yet, they still don’t take the preventive measures to stay safe from such unfortunate events.

What Is Business Impersonation?

Business impersonation is a process of defrauding customers by imitating an established brand’s identity, material, services, and other trademarks. Overall, impersonation assaults pose a major threat to top-secret information, client trust, and, most crucially, the brand’s image.

While unscrupulous actors prefer them because most of them require the construction of false company profiles or internet identities, there are various ways they can look. It is common for fraudsters to combine various malicious techniques, such as phoney accounts, domains, and apps, to deceive their victims.

coding-language

How Does Business Impersonation Work?

An email is a typical tool used by scammers to pretend to be a well-known corporation or a widely utilized business software in brand impersonation assaults. A common tactic cybercriminals use is to entice victims into disclosing personal information or clicking on dangerous websites. Attackers commonly utilize domain spoofing and lookalike websites to help their impersonation efforts appear more credible.

Fraudsters will send emails saying that your profile has been suspended and providing a link to change your password through a cleverly created template that mimics the look and feel of famous businesses. A request to evaluate your profile or a file may be included in one of these messages. A phishing site will appear real if you follow the link, but it’s meant to steal your login information.

Entering your login credentials on the bogus site gives the fraudsters access to your genuine account, allowing them to steal confidential data, commit financial frauds, and initiate additional targeted cyberattacks against your company.

A wall of security cameras

How To Tackle This Issue?

Here are some ways businesses can adopt to prevent business impersonation.

1. Ensure Verification Of Your Social Media Handles

It’s a good idea to verify your social media accounts before looking for imposters of your business. As a result, you can rest assured that none of your clients will be exploited. Almost every big social media platform offers badges of verification. Customers that have confidence in your company’s financial records will appreciate the transparency you provide them with through this channel.

As long as you know where to look in the profile’s description, spotting phoney social media accounts can be a breeze. Fake social media accounts are often used for marketing themselves or as a framework for other content, such as a YouTube channel. To get to the bottom of a problem, you need to delve a little deeper.

2. Proactive Surveillance

You can keep tabs on workplace conversations and interactions using internet monitoring services. Keep a watch out for and identify any social media profiles that look to duplicate your brand. Be sure to keep track of everybody who has access to your firm’s social media sites.

If you want to keep impersonators out of your social media accounts, pick passwords that are difficult to guess. Remember to update your credentials as soon as one of your employees leaves the company, as well.

3. Adopt DMARC

DMARC authentication protects your domain and corporate name from spoofing and other cyberattacks. Using DMARC, you can keep track of who is sending emails from your domains and reject or report any that seem suspicious.

4. Outline Communication Guidelines

It’s important to outline how you intend to engage the public whenever possible, whether by social media or email posts. For example, in every mail you send, make it clear that your company will not approach people to inquire about their login details or similar private details.

Having consumers understand that your company will only connect over a limited number of platforms will reduce the number of approaches someone could spoof you. Always ensure that every content you have sent to your consumers looks like your company. When people know what you look like, they can tell when someone imitates you.

In the rare event that you find someone trying to impersonate you, tell your audience about it right away. This will make them more careful, which will keep them from being scammed.

a man standing

There is no practical method to stop fraudsters from impersonating you––there will be people who do so and those who fall victim to them. Nevertheless, this should not negate the importance of putting up the effort necessary to combat these crooks. One of the best ways to do that is by hiring a company that provides brand protection solutions and anti-piracy solutions.

People looking for a company that offers online brand protection services should contact Onsist. We are one of the leading anti-piracy companies in Europe. We offer a wide range of solutions and services to help companies effectively fight digital piracy and other cyber threats. Our range of offerings includes impersonation removal services, brand protection solutions, financial fraud monitoring services, and a lot more.

Our team consists of highly skilled and talented people who are cybersecurity experts. This allows them to get on top of any problems our clients might face and deal with them efficiently, ensuring customer satisfaction. We have helped more than seven hundred brands by protecting them from digital piracy, business impersonation, and other cyber threats.

Contact us today and learn how we can help you. We also offer customized solutions and services tailored to suit your needs.

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