Brand protection often brings to mind intellectual property, trademarks, and counterfeit products. But today’s digital risks go much further. Cyber brand protection is now critical for protecting your reputation, customer relationships, and long-term business growth.
BrandShield found that 98.5% of CISOs say their company suffered a cyber attack. In 2026, protecting your brand online is no longer optional. It can be the difference between continued growth and a damaging incident that leads to lost sales, reduced customer confidence, and reputational harm.
Why CISOs Should Consider Cyber Brand Protection
Cyber brand protection covers the external threats that target your brand, executives, customers, and digital presence. These include executive impersonation, phishing sites, social media scams, fake accounts, unauthorized sellers, and fraudulent websites.
According to BrandShield’s internal research, CISOs in retail, software, finance, and other sectors face several challenges directly tied to cyber brand protection. One of the biggest is the financial impact of cyber attacks, with many companies reporting damages of more than $1 million per scam.
As the cost of cyber attacks increases, CISOs are responsible for more than securing internal systems and data. They are also on the frontlines of stopping brand-related digital threats that can damage the business from the outside.
The constantly changing nature of these attacks makes the problem harder to manage. Cybercriminals adjust their tactics quickly. When organizations develop defenses against one type of attack, bad actors shift to another.
The volume of attacks is also growing. 2023 was the worst year on record for data breaches, with a 72% increase from 2021. The threat shows no sign of slowing down.
Traditional online brand protection strategies are not enough for today’s threats. Social media scams, advanced phishing attacks, executive impersonation, and AI-generated abuse require a broader and faster approach. Organizations that have not updated their cybersecurity strategy may be underprepared for the reality of modern external threats.
5 Major Cyber Brand Protection Challenges CISOs Face
CISOs looking to strengthen cyber brand protection face several major obstacles.
1. Limited familiarity with the overlap between brand protection and cybersecurity
According to BrandShield research, 32.5% of CISOs say that a lack of familiarity with the intersection of brand protection and cybersecurity is a major obstacle. Many teams do not yet have the real-world knowledge needed to manage emerging online threats effectively.
Cyber brand threats require both technology and human expertise. Organizations need tools that detect abuse at scale, as well as experts who understand how to validate threats, escalate cases, and remove them before they cause damage.
2. Impersonation attacks
Egress found that impersonation was the most common phishing attack strategy in 2024. BrandShield’s survey also found that executive impersonation is affecting more organizations, with 28% of CISOs saying they had encountered this type of attack in the last three years.
Impersonation attacks continue to grow. BrandShield’s previous report on impersonation attacks identified them as one of the top threats organizations face. New technologies, including deepfakes, are making these attacks even harder to detect.
3. Increasing AI adoption
AI is now widely available, and attackers are using it to scale brand abuse. Generative AI tools make it easier to impersonate brands, executives, and employees with convincing messages, fake profiles, and fraudulent content.
These tools can also streamline IP infringement. With only a few prompts, scammers can create content that mimics a brand’s tone and style. The biggest challenge is scale. In the past, creating a scam could take a full day. With AI, bad actors can create large numbers of scams much faster.
Deepfakes make impersonation even more dangerous. Scammers can create realistic videos that convince employees they are speaking with a real executive. In one widely reported case, a Hong Kong employee was tricked into transferring more than $25 million after joining a deepfake video conference call.
4. Social media scams
Social media fraud is difficult for brands to control. Users often trust the people and pages they interact with, which makes social platforms especially attractive to scammers.
Research shows that phishing can be far more effective on social media than through email. A Google study found that email phishing is 13.7% effective on average, while a later Black Hat study found a 66% success rate on social media.
The lack of strong security controls on many social platforms also creates opportunity for attackers. With so many platforms available, cybercriminals can reach large numbers of users quickly.
Deepfakes also spread quickly on social media, especially when users believe they are real and repost them. Social platforms are also filled with fraudulent marketplace listings, where scammers claim to sell authentic products from well-known brands.
For CISOs, this creates a visibility problem. Marketing or legal teams often own social media activity, while security teams may only learn about threats after they have already spread.
5. Accelerating incident response time
Many CISOs surveyed by BrandShield said incident response will be a top priority in the next year. According to IBM, the average cost of a data breach reached a record high of $4.88 million in 2024.
The same report found that most breached organizations needed more than 100 days to recover. Every day spent on post-attack cleanup means lost time, diverted resources, and reduced focus on growth.
Reducing the impact of cybersecurity incidents requires a stronger response strategy. While AI increases the risk of impersonation and other attacks, it can also help organizations detect threats faster and improve response times.
5 Brand Protection Strategies for Tackling Current Cyber Challenges
CISOs should consider the following steps to strengthen their cyber brand protection strategy.
1. Educate employees
Employees are a major target for scammers using phishing and impersonation attacks. Training your teams to recognize suspicious messages can help prevent attacks before they lead to a breach.
Employees should understand the risks of phishing across email, social media, messaging platforms, and fake websites. Even basic awareness can reduce the effectiveness of attacks targeting your organization.
2. Update internal cybersecurity policies for brand-related risks
The threat landscape changes quickly. Internal security policies should be reviewed regularly to reflect new risks, including AI-generated phishing, deepfakes, social media scams, and executive impersonation.
As AI creates new attack methods, security teams need updated policies and tools that can address threats beyond the company’s internal network.
3. Improve collaboration across teams
Protecting your brand online requires collaboration between Security, Legal, Marketing, IT, and other teams. Social media threats, for example, may first be seen by Marketing, while enforcement may require Legal, and escalation may involve Security.
A clear company-wide social media policy can help teams respond faster. Marketing teams can support proactive monitoring, while Security and Legal teams can help assess risk and coordinate response.
If manual monitoring becomes too time-consuming, organizations can work with a digital risk protection provider to improve efficiency and coverage.
4. Use the right cyber brand protection tools
Cyber brand protection tools help monitor and detect phishing, impersonation, fake accounts, and other external threats. AI-powered platforms can help identify brand abuse faster, prioritize risk, and launch response workflows.
These tools can reduce manual work, speed up investigations, and support faster first-response actions. According to IBM, AI-powered prevention tools saved organizations an average of $2.2 million in data breach costs.
5. Combine threat intelligence with threat hunters
Threat intelligence is useful, but it is not enough on its own. Organizations also need experts who can validate threats, understand attacker behavior, collect evidence, and support takedowns.
Because brand infringement can involve illegal use of intellectual property, enforcement often requires coordination with platforms, hosting providers, registrars, and other authorities. Skilled threat hunters can help manage this process.
Threats change quickly, and many internal teams do not have the time to manage every case. A fully managed vendor partner can help CISOs keep pace while reducing the burden on internal teams.
Future-Proof Your Brand Protection with the Right Vendor Partner
To address major cyber challenges, companies need a vendor partner that understands emerging threats, current best practices, and the operational work required to remove external risks. BrandShield provides an AI-powered platform and managed service designed to help organizations stay ahead of phishing, impersonation, social media scams, and other forms of brand abuse.
BrandShield combines advanced technology with experienced professionals who understand IP protection, digital platforms, and enforcement workflows. Our team works with customers to detect threats, prioritize the most critical risks, and help remove harmful assets quickly.
We also help brands understand current threats, track trends, and stay informed about important developments in their industry.
Get information about brand protection and the threats you need to watch today. Download our CISO report to learn more.
