Online brand spoofing or digital fraud doesn’t always start with stealing credentials or sending a fraudulent email. In many cases, cybercriminals prepare their attacks by registering domains similar to those of legitimate companies, which they then use to create fake websites and deceive users. A threat that forces organizations to expand their protection strategies beyond their own websites and computer systems, adopting solutions capable of protecting their entire digital presence and identity.
For affected companies, identity theft on the Internet poses a direct risk to their relationship with their customers, trust in their brand and control of their digital presence. However, not everyone is paying the necessary attention to comprehensively protecting their online identity, especially when it comes to domain names. A vulnerability that can become the gateway to different types of digital fraud.
On the occasion of Cybersecurity Month, Ubilibet recommends strengthening the prevention of digital fraud through a proactive approach that complements the security of corporate websites with specific brand protection tools. The objective is to anticipate the threats that are prepared outside the organizations’ infrastructure and have solutions that allow action against the fraudulent use of domain names and other identity theft attempts.
More than a million phishing attacks worldwide
The latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) reveals that during the second quarter of 2026, more than one million phishing attacks were recorded worldwide, 10.1% more than in the first three months of the year. The study also identifies 941 different brands used as targets in attacks detected during that period, highlighting the growing exposure of companies to digital impersonation attempts and associated digital fraud.
“When someone impersonates a company’s digital identity, the same thing happens as with a counterfeit product: others speak on behalf of your brand, decide how your customers see you and risk something that takes years to build: trust,” says Mónica Sorribas, Legal & Brand Protection Manager at Ubilibet.
Traditionally, many companies have focused their protection strategies on internal systems, with the aim of preventing the entry of malware or preventing intruders from accessing sensitive information and sending fraudulent communications to their customers. They have also reinforced the security of their corporate pages to deal with conventional cyber attacks. However, the scenario has changed. Automation makes it easier to launch large-scale phishing campaigns, while artificial intelligence makes it possible to generate increasingly convincing fraudulent content. Among the most common techniques is the registration of domains similar to those of legitimate companies to create web pages that imitate their appearance and can be used as an instrument of digital fraud.
“Lookalike domains almost completely resemble that of a brand: just change a letter, replace an ‘o’ with a zero or add words like ‘access’ or ‘payment’. These are small details that can go unnoticed, but enough for a user to believe that they are entering the official website,” explains Mónica Sorribas.
The purpose of these practices is to ensure that the user does not realize that they are accessing a false page, designed to steal their personal data, obtain their credentials or induce them to make purchases and payments that will end up in the hands of criminals. The problem is that digital fraud not only compromises the security of those who fall for the deception, but also the reputation of the company whose identity has been used. In some cases, attackers even use compromised legitimate domains, subdomains, or spoofed accounts to more closely replicate the appearance of official channels.
The consequences can extend far beyond the initial incident. Companies lose control over their digital identity and are exposed to digital fraud that also ends up harming their customers, generating a chain of victims that deteriorates the brand’s reputation and can affect their present and future commercial activity. In fact, the success of an impersonation does not only translate into economic losses for the consumer who makes a fraudulent transfer or purchase. The company may also lose sales, suffer a deterioration in its image with other customers and assume the technical and human costs derived from investigating incidents and managing complaints.
Use preventive locking tools
One way to reduce the risk of spoofing is to act before cybercriminals can register domains similar to a legitimate brand. To achieve this, there are preventive blocking tools that prevent the acquisition of certain variants that could later be used to commit digital fraud.
Digital fraud not only compromises the security of those who fall for the deception, but also the reputation of the company
This is the case of AbuseShield, Ubilibet’s preventive solution that uses artificial intelligence to identify domain variants with a high probability of abusive use and block them before they can be registered by third parties. The company also has tools such as GlobalBlock, which allow you to block names that match a brand in hundreds of different extensions, thus reducing the chances of them being used for fraudulent purposes.
The combination of these technologies allows us to deploy a broader protection strategy, making it difficult for cybercriminals to find domains with which to launch spoofing and digital fraud campaigns. In short, it is about anticipating the threat instead of simply reacting when the damage has already occurred.
Surveillance beyond the domain
However, preventive measures do not eliminate all risks. Cybercriminals can find other ways to impersonate a brand and deceive their customers, so continuous monitoring of the digital presence is essential to detect violations and threats that may have escaped the initial protection mechanisms.
Solutions such as BrandIntel, from Ubilibet, allow us to identify possible fraudulent or unauthorized uses of a brand by monitoring third-party websites and e-commerce, analyzing their contents and metadata. This way, organizations can locate fake pages, detect violations, and uncover cases of impersonation even when the company name does not appear directly on the domain. A particularly relevant capacity to identify new forms of digital fraud that do not always resort to the use of similar domains.
“It is one thing to get content removed and quite another to recover control of a domain. Each situation requires a different response and, above all, having the appropriate tools and knowledge to protect brands,” highlights Mónica Sorribas.
Ubilibet by team.blue therefore recommends not limiting the cybersecurity strategy to strengthening internal systems or waiting for a breach to occur before acting. The most effective protection involves combining preventive blocking tools, monitoring of digital presence and the ability to respond to possible threats. A comprehensive approach that allows digital fraud to be addressed from different fronts and reduce the exposure of organizations to impersonation attempts.
This evolution reflects the need to move towards an online brand protection model in which technology and technical-legal knowledge work together. Only in this way will companies be able to anticipate digital identity abuses, respond more quickly to threats and protect both their reputation and the trust of their customers against new forms of digital fraud.
