Brand impersonation attacks hit companies ranging from small businesses to giants like Microsoft and Facebook. Explore what these types of attacks are and how you can protect your organization and customers
What do Microsoft, Facebook, and Crédit Agricole all have in common? Sure, they’re all big-name companies, but something else they share is that their brands are the three most commonly used in brand impersonation scams. These cyber attack scams involve someone pretending to be your company.
It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but that doesn’t hold true with brand impersonations. In these scenarios, bad guys use your name and reputation to swindle customers out of their login credentials, other sensitive data, and hard-earned money. But it may surprise you to know that your company isn’t a target in this situation. The target (i.e., the victim in this case) is the customer or other potential user who receives the deceptive communications and falls for it. Your company is simply a means to an end to help bad guys reach their true goals.
As you can imagine, mass brand impersonations result in significant costs and lost trust for those affected brands. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that the reported costs of business and government impersonation scams increased 85% year over year, bringing total losses from October 2020 to September 2021 to a whopping $2 billion! (This doesn’t include costs of…
