WebProNews

Online brand abuse of many of the world's most popular brands increased in 2008, according to a new report from MarkMonitor.

The report found that 80 percent of abusive sites flagged in 2007 were still active today

Cybersquatting continued to rank as brandjackers tool of choice for exploiting reputable brands, growing by 18 percent in 2008. In addition, phishers expanded their targets in 2008, with 444 organizations phished for the first time.

"Online brand abuse has reached a critical phase during which new exploits are accelerating while older threats endure, causing real and tangible harm to corporate reputations, intellectual property, customer relations and revenue streams," said Irfan Salim, president and chief executive officer of MarkMonitor.

"The good news is that brand holders have resources available to them to take action. The companies who are most successful in fighting abuse are those that make defending their brand a priority at the highest levels of management."

 A total of 440,584 instances of Cybersquatting were identified in Q4, followed by 86,837 instances of false association and 33,614 instances of pay-per-click abuse.

Consistent quarter-over-quarter growth in cybersquatting for two years indicates that brandjackers are increasingly leveraging trademarks as they make use of best practices in search engine optimization to divert traffic to illegitimate sites.

Ecommerce abuse increased by 46 percent over 2008 and 13 percent over Q3 to a yearly high of 24,589 instances.

Abuses of apparel brands grew 28 percent in 2008. Other industries that experienced significant growth in brand attacks included automotive at 21 percent, high technology at 21 percent, and food and beverage at 17 percent.

The United States, Germany and the United Kingdom continue to host the majority of brandjacking Web sites. More than half (68%) of Web sites that host brand abuse are in the United States. Germany hosts 9 percent followed by the United Kingdom at 4 percent.

Attacks against payment services increased 122 percent in the second half of the year and attacks against financial services grew 51 percent during the same period, an increase MarkMonitor attributes to the current economic crisis.

"Brandjackers are honing their techniques as they continue building their revenue on the good names of leading brands globally," said Frederick Felman, chief marketing officer of MarkMonitor.

"That 80 percent of abuse sites identified in our study last year remain active today confirms that abuse is economically sustainable for fraudsters. We expect attacks to grow both internationally and in complexity, further increasing the threat to organizations' reputations and revenues."