Domain fraud is an old cybersecurity risk manifesting in new ways as cybercriminals take advantage of new top-level domains, privacy regulations, and social engineering tactics.
More than three-quarters of businesses found "lookalike" domains posing as their brand, researchers at Proofpoint Digital Risk Protection discovered as part of the 2019 Domain Fraud Report. Nearly all (96%) found exact matches of their brand-owned domain with a different top-level domain (TLD); for example, ".net" tacked on the end of the URL instead of ".com."
"This is a huge brand problem, both from a direct revenue standpoint and indirect loss standpoint," says Kevin Epstein, vice president of threat operations at Proofpoint. In a best-case scenario, a consumer may happen upon a blank website with a domain similar to yours. Worst-case scenario, they end up on a fake website, engage in a transaction, and their money and credit card information is sent to a cybercriminal. They're angry at the attacker – and the brand.
"I'd associate this brand, now, with something negative," Epstein continues. Spoofed domains can tarnish a business' reputation, resulting in customer loss and indirect financial impact.
Most domains are registered by people and businesses for legitimate reasons. Some are registered by fraudsters planning to launch phishing attacks, sell knock-off goods on spoofed sites, or use "typo-squatting" domains to make money off unintentional traffic for other sites. Between the first and fourth quarters of 2018, Proofpoint found the registrations of fraudulent domains rose 11%. Domains were categorized as fraudulent based on a classification engine built to analyze domain records, reputation, website content, email activity, and other factors.
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