A brand protection company is advising businesses to act to protect themselves against cyber attacks. No brand can truly consider themselves safe, according to MarkMonitor.
Given the rate and sophistication of cyberattacks, brands are also facing the risk of financial and reputational loss at the hands of online criminals, the firm says.
Chrissie Jamieson, Senior Director Marketing Communications at MarkMonitor said: “Two of the most common cyber threats to harm brands take the form of phishing scams, which are cleverly-disguised emails designed to fool readers into unknowingly submitting personal information, and malware attacks, which plant malicious tools or software on computers that can access confidential information or block user access altogether. Although both attacks vary in their tactics, they can have equally damaging consequences.”
The firm points to steps that businesses can take to protect themselves against the damage commonly caused through these kinds of attacks.
Try to prevent attacks in advance — set up an early warning system alerting you of new domain registrations that are confusingly similar or misleadingly read like your brand name and may target your brand to host malicious content — before they can impact your customers. By doing this, you’re far more likely to prevent cyber criminals from using your brand name as part of a phishing attack.
Detect fraudulent activity using the right intelligence — monitor and analyse key intelligence sources to detect phishing and malware activity across email and other digital channels. Often, brands will work closely with trusted IT security professionals to identify and take relevant action with maximum effectiveness.
Mitigate and shut down phishing sites — share your phishing alerts with ISPs, browsers, email providers and security vendors, and partner with an anti-fraud vendor to block malicious sites at the Internet gateway and have them shut down quickly.
Monitor across multiple digital channels — although phishing scams primarily take place through email communications, malware can often be hiding across multiple platforms. It is therefore imperative that all brands cast a watchful eye over all these different channels instead of focusing on a select few to ensure truly effective mitigation.
Visit markmonitor.com.
