NordStellar’s cybersquatting detection: Stop domain squatters before they damage your brand

Cybersquatting detection is the latest addition to the NordStellar platform. Also known as domain squatting detection, it helps organizations fight brand impersonations.

Without cybersquatting detection, threat actors can use similar domains to trick your employees, partners, or customers into revealing sensitive information or downloading malware without noticing. A single fraudulent URL can undermine trust in your organization and lead to data breaches or financial losses.

Our new AI-powered feature makes it easier for IT managers, SOC teams, and CISOs to monitor, detect, and respond to such attacks before damage is done.

The hidden danger of lookalike domains

The biggest problem with spotting fake domains is that they look nearly identical to those of legitimate websites. Let’s take “yourcompany.com” and “yourconpany.com” as an example — did you spot the difference? In this instance, the letter “m” is replaced with “n,” which, depending on the font and its size, can be hard to discern.

Now, what are the chances that such a fake domain will be recognized in an email sent on a busy day? Would anyone even bother to check if a login webpage is virtually identical to the real one? That’s why cybersquatters successfully use them for phishing or distributing malicious software.

Even after an attack is contained, recovery can involve legal battles to reclaim domain names, expensive incident response measures, and lengthy investigations.

The cases of TikTok and DeepSeek

Real-world cases illustrate the severity of the cybersquatting threat. For instance, TikTok had to deal with two Australians who bought tiktoks.com in 2019 for a mere $2,000. The duo refused to sell the domain for $145,000 and instead used it to increase the fame and followers of TikTok users for a fee. It took over a year for ByteDance to transfer the domain via legal means.

Another more recent example involves DeepSeek, a new AI model that has already garnered over 10 million downloads on Google Play. Cybersquatters didn’t take long to create fake websites, such as deepseek-login.com, for stealing credentials, draining cryptocurrency wallets, or promoting token scams.

No business, big or small, is safe from such threats, and effectively dealing with them requires a specialized cybersquatting detection solution. However, NordStellar can help address this challenge.

How NordStellar’s cybersquatting detection can help

There are more than a dozen domain manipulation techniques that cybersquatters use, making manual tracking down of all possible variations a tough nut to crack.

Let’s say you’ve registered “yourcornpany.com” with n instead of m, as we mentioned above. This still leaves cybersquatters with plenty of options, such as hyphenation (“your-company.com”), subdomain registration (“help.yourcompany.com”), or TLD swap (“yourcompany.net”), to name but a few. NordStellar automatically checks and informs you if any such domains are currently registered.

Moreover, it tracks your domain expiration dates, allowing you to renew before someone hijacks them. Back in 2007, Dell forgot to extend dellbackupandrecoverycloudstorage.com, its PC data recovery domain. Soon, a cybersquatter obtained it and redirected all traffic to malware-infected websites.While the visitors avoided any real damage, Dell’s reputation took a hit.

With NordStellar’s real-time monitoring and alerting, you can prevent cybersquatting attacks and protect your clients from potential threats while maintaining brand integrity.

Cybersquatting detection business use cases

There are many business scenarios where cybersquatting detection can be of use. It applies both to SMBs and enterprises in any industry, allowing them to retain control over their online presence.

Even if your company is not in immediate danger, NordStellar will help you prevent cybersquatting by providing available domains similar to yours. This lets you do the defensive domain registration and make sure they don’t fall into the wrong hands. You will also see the expiration dates and know when it’s time to renew.

Cybersquatting detection also allows your security team to investigate newly registered domains that mimic your brand before threat actors put them to use. This way, you can switch from reactive to proactive defense.

In case you have a website where your employees or customers log in, cybersquatters might use a similar domain for phishing attacks. And if you’re a software distributor, they might create a counterfeit website where visitors would download malware instead.

Finally, cybersquatters might use your brand to promote their business (read the tiktoktruck.com case). They might even divert affiliate traffic, stealing your commissions. With NordStellar, you can detect such pages promptly.

How NordStellar’s cybersquatting detection works

NordStellar uses a number of techniques for cybersquatting detection. It all starts with continuous monitoring of newly registered and expiring domains. NordStellar also generates variations of your domain, allowing you to detect security risks and brand abuse.

You can choose how often our tool scans the domains. In case something requires your attention, we send real-time alerts by email, Slack, or in-app notifications. These can be easily configured according to event type and risk level.

NordStellar analyzes detected domains with the help of content and visual similarity algorithms, threat intelligence feeds, and WHOIS information. Then, it uses AI to specify threat types, confidence levels, severity, and recommended actions.

When investigating a particular domain, you will see screenshots, redirect chains, name and mail servers, WHOIS information, and similarity metrics, among other data.

Most importantly, you can easily track all identified threats and resolve them case-by-case.

Main benefits of cybersquatting detection

One of the key benefits of NordStellar’s cybersquatting detection is enhanced brand protection. While it also helps prevent direct financial losses of buying back domains or legal costs, safeguarding your reputation might be the best investment in the long term. After all, one client losing his credentials on a phishing website can be enough to trigger a domino effect.

Moreover, cybersquatting detection offers protection against malware distribution while improving your overall security posture. You can also easily integrate our tool into your security information and event management (SIEM) and security workflows via API.

NordStellar tracks not only new but also expiring domains and changes made to existing ones. We also offer advanced identification algorithms, including fuzzy hashing and visual similarity.

Last but not least, prioritized alerts allow you to concentrate on the most pressing tasks.

How your security team can use cybersquatting detection

NordStellar can be an invaluable tool for different security teams in your organization, such as:

• Security analysts. Keep an eye on alerts for suspiciously registered domains, investigate whether they pose a real threat, and work with hosting providers and RIRs for takedowns. Log your findings to inform future defense strategies.
• Threat intelligence analysts. Feed data on lookalike or squatted domains into your existing intelligence pipelines. Track bad actors and enhance overall threat detection and response efforts.
• Brand protection teams. Proactively scan for any sign of cybersquatting and ensure the company’s brand reputation remains intact.

Book NordStellar’s cybersquatting detection demo today

Our new cybersquatting detection feature is live and available to all NordStellar users.

Book a personalized demo where we will show you how to get the most out of it and stay out of harm’s way.

Protect your company and your brand.

Schedule the demo