Criminals continue to exploit the urgency around major gift-giving seasons like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and Hanukkah. Counterfeit activitynow surges by more than 50% from September through November, with a 27% spike in November alone. These sophisticated threats impersonate trusted brands across social media platforms and the open web, targeting consumers through deceptive ads, look-alike domains, and fake online stores.
Counterfeit campaigns increasingly misuse brand elements, including logos, content, and trademarked materials, that consumers rely on to verify authenticity. This abuse of intellectual property makes it harder for shoppers to differentiate genuine ads and storefronts from malicious ones. It also prolongs the lifespan of these attacks, as security teams face greater challenges detecting and dismantling them quickly.
Social Media: A Prime Target for Brand Impersonation
With the explosive growth of social commerce, marketing products and services on social media has become standard practice. In the US alone, social commerce retail sales are projected to approach $80 billion by 2025, as brands leverage profiles, ads, and storefronts to reach vast audiences.
Strong brand visibility on social platforms is now a critical competitive advantage, but cybercriminals are exploiting this presence by stealing trademarked content and creating fake accounts and ads. Brand impersonation on social media remains alarmingly easy, allowing threat actors to rapidly launch and tweak attacks with minimal effort. Fake ads and storefronts often use exclusive, limited time offers to boost their appeal and create urgency, tricking consumers into falling for counterfeit schemes.
Counterfeit Sites
Cybercriminals commonly lift messaging, imagery, and seasonal language from legitimate retail websites to make fake storefronts look convincing. With the help of automated bots, they can scrape content from trusted brands at scale, then stock these look-alike sites with counterfeit goods, often priced far below market value.
Unsuspecting shoppers are funneled to these fraudulent sites through misleading pay-per-click ads on social media and phishing emails. These fake ads not only divert customers from the real retailer but also inflate advertising costs and intensify competition for ad space. Signs a website may be counterfeit include:
- Name of the brand or product in the domain
- Logo of the legitimate brand
- Colors and images scraped from the legitimate website
- Direct or implied holiday imagery and terms
Cybercriminals are ramping up counterfeit campaigns during peak holiday shopping seasons, targeting consumers across multiple channels. These attacks often rely on stolen trademarks, festive imagery, and holiday-themed language to impersonate trusted brands and appear legitimate.
Detecting and taking down these threats is increasingly complex, as campaigns can spread across platforms and evolve quickly. To stay ahead, security teams should combine automation with expert human analysis and build strong relationships with platforms and service providers to accelerate takedown efforts.
When the holiday shopping season surges, so does the volume and sophistication of counterfeit activity targeting both consumers and brands. From fake storefronts to fraudulent ads on social media, cybercriminals are capitalizing on urgency, trust, and seasonal trends to deceive victims. Businesses must stay vigilant, prioritizing proactive monitoring, rapid takedown capabilities, and employee and consumer awareness, to protect their brand reputation and keep customers safe during the most vulnerable shopping season of the year.
Learn how Fortra Brand Protection breaks the attack chain for businesses with our Counterfeit Protection solution.