Companies face more than 1,000 domain impersonations each year

Businesses are facing a wave of attacks using domains impersonating their company and brand names according to a new study.

The research from risk protection specialist Digital Shadows shows that in the last four months its clients experienced an average of 360 domain impersonations, amounting to over 1,100 per year.

At 20 percent of the total, financial services is the most impacted sector, followed by food and beverages (12 percent), technology (11 percent), insurance (six percent) and healthcare (four percent) with 'other' making up the remaining 53 percent.

In addition to being the most targeted, financial services also has the highest likelihood of domains being used for criminal purposes. For example, 87 percent of the domains analyzed had a DNS record associated with them which will makes them appear more 'official'. Furthermore 50 percent had MX records assigned to them, making them ready to send and receive phishing emails associated with the domain. 66 percent are hosting content which can include logos or other imagery designed to exploit a brand and its customers.

Stefano De Blasi, threat researcher at Digital Shadows says, "Our research found that setting up at impersonating domains is now easier than ever, and phishing kits and tutorials -- both widely available on criminal forums -- lower the access barrier even more. The domain name registration system is a 'free for all' and open to abuse. Domain name registrars will not ask any questions of anyone registering a similar URL to a brand and they have a list of 1,500 TLDs to choose from. It's not practical for even the largest of organizations to buy every permutation of their brand(s). It's also a difficult situation to monitor since our research found that very few suspected fake domains appear on threat feeds collated by security professionals."

The full report is available from the Digital Shadows site.

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