Beware of Black Friday cyber hackers

Coming soon: Black Friday and its Cyber Monday counterpart for online merchants, the high-tech products version, will take place on Friday November 24 and Monday November 27, 2023 (although these promotional offers on mass-market products often continue into the second half of November).

Cyberpirates are already lying in ambush, and may have reserved domain names featuring your brand or company name to mislead your customers, who will order from these malicious sites without realizing that it’s not yours, and will receive either: – your counterfeit products – nothing (their payment will have been collected, or their bank details fraudulently reused).

To protect yourself, ask a specialized partner to proactively monitor domain names that include your name (a low cost for protection that will save you a great deal of lost sales and image):

• Monitoring to detect new registrations of fraudulent domain names, e.g. :

yournamefr.com                                    yourname.com.cn (China where you don’t even have a store)

shop–yourname.ru (Russia)                yourname-outlet.fr

yôur-name.fr (typeface with an accent)

• Monitor changes in detected suspicious domain names to see if, just before BlackCyber Days, a sales site* in your name opens up, or if e-mail addresses impersonating your company’s are created. *Don’t forget that hackers know how to siphon authentic photos from your site to create their own.
  You may find that some of them display an error page or the promotional page of your Internet service provider (registrar).
• Also, do an audit of your real domain names already registered. You may find that some of them display an error page or the promotional page of your Internet service provider (registrar).

→ Redirect these names to your main site, whether it’s the home page or a sub-page.

To put a stop to abuse: Report it immediately to the registrar (to the e-mail address: “abuse@…” listed in the whois of the malicious domain name) and to the host of the fake site installed on this name, focusing on phishing (the counterfeiter wrongfully recovers the financial and personal data of the victims-your customers) rather than on the supposed infringement of your name, which takes longer to defend (abuse always takes place during the procedure).

It is also possible to report abuse to the authorities, in particular Pharos (https://www.internet-signalement.gouv.fr) and https://phishing-initiative.eu.

And for those who find these days of frenetic ultra-consumption sobering, join the GREEN FRIDAY spirit (without risk).

– Sylvie BOYER, Paralegal at Mark & Law

Sources: Solid Names ; Green Friday