Every business expanding its presence on digital platforms is at risk of multiple online attacks. Brand protection then becomes a priority to secure companies and their customers. To help you understand the basics of online protection, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of all terms related to this field.
Online Brand Protection Glossary
A framework within which partners must work in connection with a brand. It is a non-negotiable aspect of the affiliate relationship, allowing companies to ensure the safety of their brand.
The proactive use of technology, processes, labor, and tools to detect and take down counterfeit products. Online crawling and scraping capabilities enable organizations to automatically cover hundreds of marketplaces and online platforms to detect counterfeit goods and IP infringements.
Anti-piracy includes all the actions taken by organizations and law enforcement agencies to oppose digital copyright infringements of specific assets including intellectual property, digital content, software, and code.
Online brand abuse & exploitation happen when third parties exploit an existing brand. The goals are diverse and can vary from monetary profit to data theft. They can take many forms, such as: • Phishing • Social media impersonation • Counterfeit goods
Online brand protection focuses on protecting companies from risks that are outside the firewall perimeter like online scams, trademark infringements, counterfeiting, phishing, typosquatting, and impersonation. It covers a wide range of external digital channels: the Internet, social media, marketplaces, dark and deep web, mobile apps, and paid ads.
A scam that impersonates a brand to fool customers into believing they are in communication with a genuine brand unaware they are being duped.
Brand reputation is the perception customers have of your brand. A positive brand helps increase sales, while a negative brand reputation is a costly liability.
Brand value refers to the monetary worth of a brand. It is calculated by accumulating all the brand’s assets including revenues, brand reputation, trademarks, websites, social media, and much more.
A click scam is a type of online scam whereby the user is tricked into clicking a website hoping to obtain specific content, only to be redirected to web pages that target victims to commit fraud.
When titles, hyperlinks, and thumbnails attract users with a manipulative approach and fail to deliver added value in order to drive traffic and increase the revenue earned through serving ads.
Copyright infringement is the illegal use of copyrighted materials without permission to reproduce, distribute, display or create derivative works. Copyright infringement is protected by copyright laws.
Counterfeiting is the imitation and distribution of genuine goods with the intention to deceive customers and make unlawful profits.
Cybersquatting, or domain squatting, involves finding and registering domain names that have similarities with a popular brand to divert an important part of web traffic from the legitimate brand and send it to a rogue website.
A string of characters that through the DNS network resolves to a specific and unique internet address
To identify and publish private information on the internet about a person or organization for malicious intents.
When fraudsters pose as known and trusted individuals to dupe a C-level executive into transferring money, sharing sensitive data, or revealing their login credentials which can be used to infiltrate an organization.
This refers to products being manufactured with the brand’s knowledge and consent, but then being sold outside the original manufacturer’s authorized distribution channel.
The exploitation of domain structure by using foreign language characters that mimics English letter and characters to make it look like a genuine brand.
A website that copies the layout or design of a known brand in order to impersonate the brand for malicious profit. This website doesn’t necessarily have to be identical to the original site.
Intellectual property (IP) is intangible creations of the human intellect: literary or artistic works, designs, or patents.
Malware is the name given to malicious software which causes damage to a computer or network through unauthorized access.
Fraud is intentional deception to make personal profits such as counterfeit sales, phishing, and impersonation.
Patent theft is the unauthorized use of a licensed invention without permission from the official holder. Online patent theft covers a wide range, including creative ideas and designs, web content, images, etc.
Phishing is a type of online attack often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers by impersonating a trustworthy entity.
Paid ad scams occur when a user clicks on malicious links or is diverted to a website that leverages a similar look and feel, in order to dupe the user into thinking they are shopping with a trusted brand.
Wide range of sites that are set up for malicious or criminal purposes. This includes counterfeit-selling sites, typosquatters, cybersquatters, as well as imitation sites.
Social media fraud is a wide term that includes many kinds of illegal activity taking place on social media such as impersonation, counterfeit sales, trademark infringement, phishing, and other scams.
The unlawful use of work protected by a registered trademark, such as the company’s brand, logo, or brand name by a third party.
This is a form of cybersquatting that involves registering domains with misspelled URL entries. Typosquatting relies on typos and errors that happen when users type a URL into a web browser or click on links that look very similar to the original domain name.
Whaling or CEO fraud is a sophisticated phishing attack that is aimed at senior executives or key holders of a company, like employees who are handling payments.