Before we get to the article, we could use your input on a new promotion. What if you could earn cash by simply sharing INKY blog posts with your friends and colleagues? Receive a $5 reward for each shared post, payable every time you accumulate $50 in rewards. Sounds easy, right?
The question we need help answering is what’s the best way to receive your pay-out? We think most people will choose an Amazon card, but this survey will help us know for sure. Please select your preference from the choices below.
Okay! We know cash for sharing content would be a great promotion, but truth-be-told, we really just wanted to set the stage for a discussion on brand impersonations. You see, millions of people respond to brand impersonation emails. So, don't feel bad if any of the three choices above sparked some interest, it just means you can probably relate to the quick-clicks made by victims of brand impersonation or brand forgery phishing attacks.
Now, let’s get on with the article.
If you’re unsure how prevalent brand impersonations have become, a recent study showed that nearly 60% of all phishing attacks impersonate a well-known company or brand.1 As a Managed Service Provider (MSP), you'll need effective tools in place to protect your customers from brand impersonation phishing attempt. Afterall, when an employee falls for a brand impersonation scheme, it can put their company, its clients, and its reputation at risk.
Let’s take a quick step back and remind ourselves exactly what brand impersonation includes. Brand impersonation is when attackers craft emails that look like they’re coming from a trusted brand—your client, for instance. They might use a near-identical domain name, a lifted logo, and a perfectly worded message to trick employees or customers into taking action. Clicking a link. Entering a password. Sending a payment. You get the idea – it all leads to trouble and has the potential to launch a malware or ransomware attack, credential harvesting scheme, zero day attack, and more.
It’s also key to note that these aren’t the sloppy phishing emails of the past. Today’s brand forgeries are sophisticated, hard to detect, and devastatingly effective.
As an MSP, your clients trust you to protect more than just inboxes—they’re relying on you to protect their reputation, revenue, and relationships. When their brand is impersonated, the fallout is real:
Worse, your clients might not even know it’s happening until the damage is done. Brand impersonation campaigns can fly under the radar for weeks or months, quietly harvesting credentials and siphoning off data. A great example is the Google and Facebook phishing attack of 2013. In total, this brand impersonation phishing attack went on for two years and generated losses of $100 million. The attackers pretended to be a mutual supplier of the two companies, named Quanta. The phishers sent a series of invoices over the course of two years, which were paid. Once the fraud was uncovered, the attackers were arrested in Lithuania and extradited to the United States. After a long legal battle, Facebook and Google recovered less than half of the stolen funds.2
Here’s the good news: You don’t have to fight brand impersonation alone. INKY’s email security platform uses advanced artificial intelligence, computer vision, machine learning, and domain-specific threat intelligence to detect brand forgery in real time—even when the attacker has crafted a near-perfect fake.
INKY doesn’t just filter bad emails. It understands how a brand should look and behave, and it flags even subtle anomalies. Whether it’s a logo that’s less than pixel-perfect, or a spoofed sender domain, INKY catches what others miss—and explains the threat in plain language your clients can actually understand. And, as an added layer of protection, companies should have a strict DMARC policy in place. INKY's DMARC Monitoring helps ensure legitimate email from your brand can be identified, while impersonation attempts will stand out as not being authenticated.
Better still, INKY is built to scale. As an MSP, you can protect multiple clients with one powerful platform and offer a solution that adds real value to your service or security stack.
Each year, INKY shares a report that includes the most compromised brands in phishing. In 2024, that list included the following:
Brand impersonation is a growing threat—and a golden opportunity for MSPs to differentiate themselves. By offering INKY’s cutting-edge protection, you’re not just preventing phishing attacks. You’re preserving trust, protecting reputations, and proving your value as a true security partner.
If you’d like to learn more about INKY’s capabilities, including its newest GenAI release, download INKY’s 2024 Email Security Annual Report for a data-driven look at the threats shaping today’s inboxes.
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INKY is an award-winning, behavioral email security platform that blocks phishing threats, prevents data leaks, and coaches users to make smart decisions. Like a cybersecurity coach, INKY signals suspicious behaviors with interactive email banners that guide users to take safe action on any device or email client. IT teams don’t face the burden of filtering every email themselves or maintaining multiple systems. Through powerful technology and intuitive user engagement, INKY keeps phishers out for good. Learn why so many companies trust the security of their email to INKY. Request an online demonstration today.
1Source: https://controld.com/blog/phishing-statistics-industry-trends/
2Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/phishing-email-scam-stole-100-million-from-facebook-and-google.html