A new report by Memcyco on the growing threat of website impersonation scams has revealed a worrying lack of visibility on behalf of companies, with the majority of consumer brands only learning about such attacks after their customers have already been tricked into giving malicious actors their personal information by interacting with an impersonated website.
According to Memcyco’s inaugural 2024 State of Website Impersonation Scams report, the majority of companies do not have adequate solutions to counter digital impersonation fraud despite being widely aware of the issue, and most companies only learn about the attacks from their customers.
Perhaps the most worrying finding is that most organizations, by default, rely on their own customers as threat intelligence. According to the report, although 72% of respondents said their company has a system in place to try and detect impersonated websites, the solutions are largely ineffective, as 66% said they usually learn about their existence from customers who have already been scammed. Most often, affected customers won’t even contact the brand directly, but instead post about their experience on social media. As such, 37% of respondents said they learn about brand impersonation via “brand shaming”.
It’s important to note that many victims of fraud don’t even file complaints or report what happened, so the true numbers may well be even higher, Memcyco points out.
“One of the most alarming takeaways from the report is that website impersonation scams are growing because attackers rely on companies having limited visibility into these kinds of attacks,” Israel Mazin, chairman and CEO of Memcyco, said in a statement. “This creates a glaring blindspot in cybersecurity — the inability of companies to protect their customers online.”
Another alarming takeaway is that just 19% of companies said they typically reimburse their customers who were defrauded by an impersonating website. However, companies will likely be compelled to do more to prevent brand impersonation, as 48% of companies are aware of upcoming regulations that will force them to reimburse their customers.
The survey, which was conducted on behalf of Memcyco by Global Surveyz Research, was based on the responses of 200 directors and executives at companies that have a strong digital presence, with more than 10,000 monthly visits to their websites. The intention of the report was to highlight what companies are doing to counter website impersonation attacks, and the findings give plenty of cause for alarm.
Memcyco is a provider of tools that proactively identify impersonated websites in real time and warn consumers who visit them. If a customer is attacked, Memcyco shares the full details with the company, enabling a swift response for SOC teams.
