Subdomain Infringement: An Unseen Threat

Domain infringement is when threat actors use brand names within illegitimate web domains to imply affiliation with a brand to deceive end users about who’s behind the content they see on a site. Most brands are well aware of these risks, and have an internal program in place to identify and prevent domain infringement—but these usually only cover searching for infringement in parent domain names.

But therein lies a critical problem: infringing subdomains are just as dangerous and destructive to a brand and an organization’s security posture in the hands of threat actors as infringing parent domains.

In this white paper, we’ll show you why subdomain infringement detection is critical for information security and fraud protection, as well as:

• Why subdomain infringement is even more dangerous than parent domain infringement
• Why subdomain infringement slips through the cracks on an organizational level
• Outline the techniques used by threat actors to efficiently acquire domains from which to launch large-scale subdomain infringement campaigns
• Explore how prevalent the problem is, using five leading financial service companies as real examples that show how dangerous subdomain infringement can be
• Explain the steps you can take to turn domain infringement detection into comprehensive domain threat detection