In the modern-day world where businesses are started, grow and evolve every day and novel ideas are on the rise each day, one of the most important things one has to keep in mind is protecting their intellectual ideas. In an age of invention and innovation, even the slightest silliest but brilliant idea can lead one to treading a path of success and growth. It is common for emerging businesses to lose what they solely worked hard for to counterfeiting and piracy but unfortunately don’t have the legal fees or the legal standing to fight for their brand. Why then must one wait for that storm to come before building a strong enough shelter (African Proverb)? Therefore, two simple words for all emerging businesses as well as those huge worldwide brands: Brand Protection. But the question one might ask is what then is brand protection? Not a single word or phrase can be used to define brand protection. It can be defined as the set of tools designed to keep a brand reputation and market price positioning up to that brand’s goals. In other words, brand protection entails fighting the loss of revenue, nurturing a brand’s reputation thereby increasing customer trust as well as protecting a brand’s assets.
By now it’s plain to see that someone has to do the protecting. Brand protection is not confined to small businesses, multi-million dollar corporations also lay victim and prey to cyber-squatters, counterfeiters, fraudsters and competitors. Group iB is a technological service designed to detect and eliminate threats to a brand on the internet, preventing financial and reputational damage caused to businesses by brand abuse, internet fraud, online piracy, counterfeiting, and smear campaigns. Group iB has an automated system designed to monitor cyber-crime infrastructure and hacker interrelations enabling them to be the first to learn about new websites, mobile applications and announcements abusing a brand. Due to their extensive experience in IT incident investigation and response, they are able to offer a wide range of online brand protection services. Here are some quick statistics:
3+ million resources are being monitored automatically in real time, about 20,000 violations are eliminated daily and up to 85% of the violations are eliminated on a pre-trial basis.
In 3 simple steps:
1. Monitoring 24/7
2. Threat detection
3. Violations elimination
A Proof of Concept (POC) was agreed upon by one brand which will be referred to as Group A (name withheld due to client’s request to remain anonymous and identity protection) and the following results were noted.
|
TYPE OF THREAT |
RESULTS |
REMARKS |
|
Illegal use of the brand, internet fraud |
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Fraudulent Websites |
>50 Websites |
Names that are consonant with the brand which can potentially be used for fraudulent purposes |
|
Fake mobile apps |
>70 apps |
Published in official and unofficial stores use Group A's brand |
|
Fake social media accounts and groups
|
11 Groups and accounts
|
Potential Risk:
|
|
Negative Publications |
>100 publications |
Some include "bad experience" and negative reviews |
At Group iB your brand reputation is our utmost priority and we have the state-of-the-art cyber security technologies coupled with a team of experts in cybercrime investigations and forensic analysis to back us up. Group-IB not only can identify the infringing sites illegally selling your products, but also with our investigative background have the ability to identify the actual identity of individuals involved.
The majority of violations are solved out of court. In those cases where it’s impossible, we will be glad to provide you with professional legal support at every stage. We can block up to 90% of resources threatening your brand in just one month!