To continue our discussion on Brand Protection, let me ask the question – “How do you protect your brand online?” You have worked so hard building your organization, the last thing you want is a cyber threat to cause chaos. So… let’s discuss Digital Brand Protection. 

Digital Brand Protection: The CISO’s Playbook for Defending Against Advanced Phishing Campaigns

In an increasingly digital economy, global businesses face more cyber risks than ever before. Threat actors continually evolve and adapt to new security protocols, seeking to poke holes in corporate defenses and execute successful cyberattacks. But despite security teams’ best efforts with investments in internal security infrastructure, advanced endpoint defense solutions, and services like managed detection and response, they can only control what happens within their environments. The real cyber threat action is happening beyond the perimeter.

RISE’s Partner, BlueVoyant, has expert cyber threat analysts who have have tracked various new campaigns over the past year – from complex third-party phishing scams targeting banks and retailers to advances in malicious AI tools and social engineering campaigns using corporate executives’ likenesses to trick users into falling for crypto scams. The common denominator between all these attack types is a simple one: phishing. 

The Oldest Trick in the Book Still Works

Phishing is the most common attack vector for one simple reason: the human element. Consumers who are not well-versed in security best practices – and even many who are savvy enough to recognize certain phishing scams – are always at risk of being lured into a trap. Cybercriminals are adept at tricking users into clicking malicious links and surrendering personal information. 

Here some methods attackers use to carry out these successful attacks despite the security teams’ best efforts to shut them down:

Spoofed domains, social media networks, and mobile apps dupe customers: Hackers set up fake web domains, social media accounts, and mobile apps using an organization’s branding to lure customers into providing login credentials. Spoofing can compromise brand reputation and trigger successful fraud campaigns. 

Phishing kits break down the barrier to entry for even novice hackers: While not exactly a new concept, today’s phishing kits are increasingly sophisticated and sold on the cheap, opening the door for even the most inexperienced of cybercrime wannabes. Some phishing kits enable the user to scrape HTML code directly from a website’s source code and seamlessly create a duplicate website that, if one does not inspect the URL closely enough, may appear to be a legitimate branded website. When coupled with an email campaign designed to lure customers into entering their credentials or providing PII to access their accounts, the results can be devastating and widespread.

The rising threat of smishing scams creates more entry points: Over the past few years, mobile device users across the globe – but especially in the United States – have been inundated with a steady stream of “smishing”, or SMS phishing, texts that attempt to provoke the user into clicking a malicious link or providing sensitive information. Many of these scams impersonate banks and financial institutions to trick customers into performing a desired action that will facilitate a successful attack.

BlueVoyant Helps Thwart Phishing at the Source 

Endpoint security solutions can shut down cyberattacks and mitigate the damage they can cause. But this is reactive defense – the hackers have already infiltrated your network, and your security team is left chasing them with limited visibility beyond the perimeter. The endpoint defense solution cannot detect threats as they emerge: phishing domains being registered on hosting providers, malicious apps popping up in app stores, social media impersonations of your brand, etc. Security teams need to combine endpoint solutions with a proactive cyber defense approach leveraging Digital Brand Protection to disrupt cyberattacks before they hit a company’s perimeter.

BlueVoyant Digital Brand Protection uses a combination of machine learning, data analytics, and human expertise to help security teams proactively expose websites, social media accounts, and applications impersonating your brand. BlueVoyant equips security teams with the tools they need to detect and validate cyber threats with minimal false positives, analyze threat data to pinpoint and adapt to emerging cybercriminal patterns, and ultimately shut down threats at the source. 

With BlueVoyant Digital Brand Protection, your team can gain visibility into emerging threats, take down threats at the source before they even turn into full-fledged attacks, and anticipate future attacks using insights gleaned from threat data. Our users enjoy the following benefits:

• Advanced phishing detection of malicious web domain registrations across hosting providers, app impersonations across 170-plus app stores, and brand impersonations on social media platforms.
• Unmatched, comprehensive data sources including DNS data sets, instant messaging channels, breach data, and exclusive cybercrime forums.
• Unlimited 24-hour phishing takedown capabilities leveraging exclusive partnerships with domain registrars.
• Automated alerts, threat prioritization, and continuous monitoring supported by our cyber threat analyst team.
• Fully automated product that can be deployed out of the box, backed by expert analysts assigned to each client.

To learn more about BlueVoyant Digital Brand Protection, contact info@risetechadvisors.com.