Brand impersonation Campaign

Researchers have discovered a widespread brand impersonation campaign that has targeted more than a hundred popular clothing and footwear brands, tricking users into divulging their account credentials and financial information on fraudulent websites since last year June.

The widespread brand impersonation campaign targeting over a hundred popular apparel, footwear, and clothing brands has been underway since June 2022, tricking people into entering their account credentials and financial information on fake websites. According to Bolster's threat research team, who discovered the campaign, it relies on at least 3,000 domains and roughly 6,000 sites, including inactive ones.

The brands impersonated by the phony sites include Nike, Puma, Asics, Vans, Adidas, Columbia, Superdry Converse, Casio, Timberland, Salomon, Crocs, Sketchers, The North Face, UGG, Guess, Caterpillar, New Balance, Fila, Doc Martens, Reebok, Tommy Hilfiger, and others.

As per the report of Bolster, the campaign had a significant activity spike between January and February 2023, adding 300 new fake sites monthly. These deceptive domains, hosted by Packet Exchange Limited and Global Colocation Limited and the domain names follow a pattern of using the brand name together with a city or country, followed by a generic top-level domain like such as ".com."

The researchers say that the campaign operated over ten fake websites for Nike, Puma, and Clarks, featuring a design very similar to the official sites of the brands. This is particularly an effective strategy in luring unsuspecting users to visit a phishing site, as most people associate high ranking in Google Search with credibility and trustworthiness.

The question remains unanswered, will the websites appear credible and can rank high in Google Search results, making it crucial for users to verify the legitimacy of a site by checking reputable sources like the brand's official social media or Wikipedia page rather than relying on search results.

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA