What is cybersquatting?
Cybersquatting, also known as domain squatting, is the illegal practice of registering domains of well-known, trademarked brands with the intent of profiting. In many instances, the domain owner will offer to sell the domain to the trademark owner at an increased price.
But cybersquatting can also involve abusive activities, like phishing, malware distribution, or hosting fraudulent content. In such cases, the domain registration is designed to divert the traffic from the trademarked brand to steal credentials or collect user data.
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Ways you can prevent cybersquatting
Preventing cybersquatting can be a complex process, but you can make it easier by taking some precautions:
When you register your .com domain, secure top-level domain variations, such as .com and .net. While registering all possible variations is impossible, forcing scammers to rely on typos and hyphens to imitate a domain, significantly reduces the risk of brand impersonation.
Tracking domain registrations by yourself can be a hassle. Threat exposure management platforms, such as NordStellar, can turn cybersquatting detection into an automated and efficient process saving time and resources. Cybersquatting detection monitors new and expiring domains, evaluates risk, while maintaining smooth user experience keeping your brand safe.
Registering your brand as a trademark provides legal ownership of your name. If you ever need to go the legal route, your case would be significantly stronger.
How does NordStellar’s cybersquatting detection work?
Cybersquatting detection includes various techniques to identify potentially malicious domains:
Continuous monitoring and analysis
NordStellar continuously monitors for domain registrations or changes, together with SSL transparency logs.
AI-powered threat assessment
Detected domains are analyzed by comparing visual and content similarity, while AI further examines detected threats, providing detailed information including specific threat types, severity levels, supporting evidence, and recommended remediation actions.
Real-time alerts
NordStellar generates real-time alerts, based on configurable criteria, providing a detailed view of each suspicious domain. It includes screenshots, redirect chains, WHOIS information, and other similarity metrics, allowing seamless incident tracking and resolution.
In-depth investigation and resolution tracking
Nordstellar offers a detailed view of suspicious domains, including screenshots, redirect chains and similarity metrics. You can track identified threats and resolve them efficiently.
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What are the benefits of NordStellar’s cybersquatting detection?
Protects brand reputation
Maintain customer trust and loyalty by eliminating infringing domains around your brand.
Prevents phishing and malware
Identify malicious activity around your brand before it escalates into widespread phishing attacks.
Improves security posture
Gain visibility into potential threats surrounding your brand, enabling proactive measures and timely resolution.
Saves costs
Timely resolution helps your organization save time and mitigate potential costs associated with fraud, legal disputes, and reputational damage.
Retains traffic
NordStellar’s cybersquatting feature prevents malicious actors from diverting potential customers, protecting online sales.
Explore more security solutions from NordStellar
NordStellar lets your cybersecurity team patch critical vulnerabilities and intervene at the earliest stages of an attack – before any real damage is done.
Dark web monitoring allows you to track all keywords associated with your business across deep and dark web communities, such as hacker forums, illicit marketplaces, and Telegram channels. It helps you uncover brand mentions, issues with vendors, and leaked information about your VIP personnel.
Data breach monitoring involves scanning the deep and dark web for leaked sensitive information linked to your business. To spot breached data, NordStellar checks infostealer malware logs, leaked databases, and collections of stolen credentials combinations. This solution provides real-time monitoring and the full context of past and present attacks.
Attack surface management (ASM) helps you monitor your business's external attack surface to prevent potential cyber risks. It lets you efficiently manage your company's internet-facing assets, such as websites, servers, applications, and cloud resources, by searching for vulnerabilities and security gaps within them.
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FAQ
Domain squatting, cybersquatting, and typosquating are closely related but their meanings differ slightly. Cybersquatting and domain squatting both refer to the practice of registering domain names that imitate well-known brand names, often with the intent to profit or mislead users.
Typosquatting is a type of cybersquatting that involves registering a domain with slight misspellings of trademarked brands. For example, registering yaho.com or yahooo.com, instead of yahoo.com.
NordStellar over 16 different types of cybersquatting that involve typosquatting, addition, bitsquatting, cyrillic, homoglyph, hyphenation, insertion, omission, pluralization, repetition, replacement, subdomains, transposition, vowel swap, dictionary attacks, and TLD swaps.
Yes, cybersquatting is illegal. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) defines cybersquatting as the bad-faith registration, use, or trafficking of a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or personal name, with the intent to profit from it.
Identifying cybersquatters can be difficult, as threat actors can register numerous similar domain combinations using various cybersquatting techniques. However, with platform like NordStellar, you can easily spot and act on malicious domains.
Detecting cybersquatting early is crucial. If left unchecked, malicious actors can exploit your brand to divert traffic, deceive users and distribute malware or phishing, negatively impacting your organization. Undetected cybersquatting can continue for months, causing significant damage to your company’s revenue and reputation.
Various security teams can benefit from NordStellar’s cybersquatting detection. It helps security analysts receive real-time alerts about potentially harmful domains, threat intelligence analysts can integrate domain squatting into their threat detection workflows, and brand protection teams can proactively monitor for domain infringements.
If you’re affected by cybersquatting, start by gathering evidence of misuse and evaluating the potential risks. If you can find the domain owner’s information on WHOIS, try contacting them to find a solution, or report the domain to the registrar.
You can also file a complaint through ICANN’s UDRP or take legal action under the ACPA if you own a trademark. In cases of fraud, report the issue to relevant authorities. For example, malicious domains can be reported to Google Safe Browsing, Microsoft SmartScreen, and your country’s national cybersecurity agency.