Phishing Scams Brandjack The Strongest Brands

The phrase "brandjacking" has been lately been used to criticize social media plays, like Brands in Public, that seek payments for blocking negative feedback. But a genuinely criminal wave of brandjacking—ju-jitsulike phishing scams that use a brand's own recognition and trustworthiness against it—poses a growing threat to many brands.

Trusted brands—from PayPal to Amazon—are increasingly being leveraged by criminals to trick consumers into handing over sensitive personal information. MarkMonitor's recent Brandjacking Index revealed that phishing attacks hit a record high in the second quarter of 2009, with unique attacks numbering 151,000.

The MarkMonitor study identified financial services brands as the most abused, accounting for 80% of all attacks during the period. The exploitation of popular social networking site brands to steal login and password information rose nearly 170% year over year. Pharma brands were another “hot" property, "including hits on 3,000 online pharmacies and 652 B2B exchange listings for those brands during July 2009."

Brandjacking is an increasing global scourge, too. Recent data from software security firm Symantec found attacks on Indian brands have recently increased four-fold.

Of course, these brandjacking scams undermine the very strength of the brands they mean to leverage. Calls are increasing for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to strengthen current measures stipulated in the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. But the reality is that many brands may not even know they're under attack.