Brand Intelligence

What is Brand Intelligence?

Brand Intelligence is a subset of threat intelligence. It monitors and analyzes online activities and mentions related to a brand.

This includes things like tracking fake accounts and unauthorized use of brand assets. It also includes detecting threats like phishing scams and domain spoofing.

By leveraging brand intelligence, businesses can proactively prevent attacks before they happen.

Companies use this data to protect their reputation and customers.

Brand Intelligence reduces the risk of financial loss from brand abuse.

Why is Brand Intelligence Important?

Brand Intelligence plays a critical role in protecting companies from malicious actors. Here are some of the main reasons why it’s so important:

Fraud Prevention: It helps detect scams that impersonate your brand. It reduces the risk of fraudulent websites, accounts, and phishing campaigns.
Threat Detection: Brand Intelligence helps organizations protect their assets. It does this by monitoring for new threats and vulnerabilities.
Incident Response: Detecting threats in real-time enables businesses to respond quickly. Early detection minimizes the damage and recovery time after an attack.

The most common types of Brand Abuse

Brand abuse comes in many forms. Here are some of the most common:

Phishing Scams: Attackers create fake websites or emails that mimic your brand. They then use these to trick customers into handing over sensitive information.
Domain Squatting (Cybersquatting): Malicious actors register domain names similar to your domain name. These domains are then used to host phishing sites and trick visitors.
Social Media Impersonation: Attackers create fake social media profiles. These fake profiles are then used to impersonate your brand. Fake profiles are commonly used to scam followers or spread misinformation.
Unauthorized Use of Brand Assets: Attackers use logos, images, or other intellectual property without permission to mislead consumers.
Typosquatting: Attackers register misspelled variations of a brand’s domain name. The goal is to capture traffic from users who mistype the company’s URL, often leading them to a malicious site.
Content Scraping: Copying a brand’s content and republishing it as their own. This can damage your SEO rankings and credibility.
SEO Manipulation: Using black hat SEO to boost fake or malicious sites in search results for brand-related keywords.
Counterfeit Products: Fake products sold under your brand’s name can damage reputation and lead to financial loss.

Real-world examples of brand intelligence in action

Netflix: In 2017, a phishing campaign targeted Netflix users. It sent emails from a domain that closely resembled Netflix’s official one. The fake domain included subtle changes, such as replacing an “i” with an “l”. The emails directed users to a fake Netflix login page to steal their credentials. Brand Intelligence could be used to take down lookalike domains right after they’re registered.
Twitter: In 2018, a number of Twitter accounts impersonated celebrities, including Elon Musk. They were created to promote cryptocurrency scams. The fake accounts would reply to Musk’s tweets, claiming to give away cryptocurrency in exchange for a small initial payment. Organizations can use Brand Intelligence to monitor social media. It will find any accounts trying to impersonate their brand or C-level executives. By setting up alerts for specific keywords, names, and variations, brand intelligence tools can quickly detect fake accounts and suspicious activity.
Tangerine Telecom: In February 2024, Australian ISP Tangerine Telecom was breached. The attack resulted in the theft of over 200,000 customer records. The breach was traced back to a single contractor’s leaked credentials. Brand monitoring, specifically monitoring your third-party vendors, is critical to protecting your organization’s assets.

What to look for in brand intelligence solutions

When choosing a brand intelligence solution, look for the following capabilities:

Comprehensive Monitoring

Domain Monitoring: Detect typosquatting, homoglyphs domains, and other look-alike techniques. These are commonly used in phishing or brand impersonation attacks.
Social Media Monitoring: Track mentions of your brand across social media platforms. This will allow you to quickly identify misuse or fake accounts.
Dark Web Monitoring: Ensure your solution can track brand mentions and planned attacks on dark web forums and marketplaces.
Data Breach Monitoring: Monitor third-party breaches, stealer logs, and combo lists. Leaked employee, vendor, and customer credentials often appear in these.

Threat Detection and Analysis

Phishing Detection: Identify phishing attacks, via email or fake websites, targeting your brand.
Impersonation Detection: Detect fake accounts, websites, or emails impersonating your brand. This is especially important on social media.
Malware and Fraud Detection: Monitor for malware campaigns or fraud linked to your brand.

Data Integration and Correlation

SIEM Integration: The solution must work with your existing security tools, like SIEMs and firewalls. This will centralize monitoring.
Data Correlation Capabilities: The ability to correlate information from different sources. This will provide a comprehensive understanding of your threat landscape.

Real-time Alerts and Reporting

Real-time Alerts: Get notified immediately when a threat to your brand is detected.
Detailed Reporting: Provide detailed alerts. The alerts should be very specific. Ensure that all relevant stakeholders can access the alerts.

Actionable Insights

Remediation Guidance: The solution should provide clear guidance on how to mitigate threats.
Incident Response Support: Integrate the solution with incident response processes. This will speed up your ability to remediate threats.