What Is Being Done About It?

Cybercriminals are cashing in on the hard work brands and organisations have done to build trust with consumers. Email phishing scams often start with criminals creating lookalike websites from a reputable brand to dupe visitors into handing over data, purchase fake products and services or targeting them with malware.

These domains are such convincing copycats that they are easily mistaken for the real thing. Visitors can end up on these sites due to a typo when entering the genuine domain, hence the name “typosquatting”.

Another common scam is smishing, when spammers send convincing text messages with a link to a fake domain, appearing to be from a legitimate provider. This link will lead to one of these lookalike, fake domains.

Often described as a ‘sophisticated cyber-attack’, the reality is that the majority of these tactics are preventable, should businesses take the correct steps and invest in the right resources to not just protect their customers, but also the brand’s reputation.

What Is The Government Doing?

The Online Safety Bill was announced on 12th May 2021. While numerous areas of web safety were announced, this bill stops short of protecting consumers against typosquatting and instead focuses on in-app content.

Therefore, consumers are having to seek help and advice from independent organisations to stay safe online. A report released by the NCSC in May 2021 revealed that fifteen times more online scams were prevented and shut down in the last 12 months to protect the public during the pandemic and the rise in COVID-19 related scams.

Despite this, malicious domains continue to be on the rise.

Businesses Are Stepping Up

In an ideal world, domain registration and hosting providers would be more active in the prevention of typosquatting. However, the number of sites registered each day is so large and these services have such a low margin, this is not currently viable.

Therefore, businesses are taking responsibility for protecting their customers and maintaining their brand’s reputation by using tools available to prevent typosquatting.

Companies can adopt a simple 5 point plan to reduce the chances of their business being impersonated to comit phishing attacks and fraud:

1. Assess brand impersonation risk as part of your branding process
2. Trademark your company and product brands to justify takedown requests
3. Register appropriate top-level domains for your brands and most common variations to stop fraudsters getting hold of them
4. Develop clear and consistent communications policies with customers so they know how and when you will contact them to help them avoid falling for scams
5. Adopt continuous monitoring for suspicious domain registrations to ensure early detection

Need To Report Online Fraud?

Currently, reporting directly to the police has little impact on the criminals involved in online fraud. However, there are organisations that look into every report they receive and help bring down these fraudsters. You can make a report to either of the following two organisations:

• The Nation Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
• Action Fraud

Source:
https://www.fraudscape.co.uk/
https://www.crowe.com/uk/insights/financial-cost-of-fraud-2021