Social media threats targeting enterprises more than doubled last year. Attacks on the retail industry specifically have grown, as threat actors are targeting victims with impersonation and counterfeit ad campaigns.
With purchasing decisions heavily shaped by social platforms, attackers are exploiting the fast-paced, low-scrutiny nature of social media to spread counterfeit ads and impersonation campaigns. The result? Widespread brand damage and lost revenue.
In this post, we examine how these threats are targeting retail on social media.
Impersonation
According to our Q4 Threat Trends & Intelligence Report, impersonation was associated with 86% of all social media attacks targeting retail organizations. Impersonation is used to enhance the credibility of attacks, help actors evade detection, and extend the longevity of campaigns. These organic attacks include the abuse of logos, copy, images, and other IP.
The increased presence of retail brands on social media makes it easy for threat actors to collect trademarked data and repurpose it in the form of fake pages, posts, messages, and more. Below are two examples of fake social media pages using the name, images, logos and content of legitimate retail brands.
Counterfeit Ad Campaigns
Cybercriminals are increasingly weaponizing paid social ads in multichannel counterfeit campaigns. By creating fake business pages and using stolen brand assets, they publish sponsored ads that drive victims to malicious websites selling counterfeit goods.
These ads are appealing to threat actors because they’re low-cost, easy to deploy, and highly targetable—reaching victims by age, location, interests, and more. For retailers, the impact can be severe: revenue loss, reputational damage, and customer distrust.
The fast-moving nature of social platforms makes the problem worse. Users consume and share content rapidly, while stolen brand imagery often blends in seamlessly, allowing counterfeit campaigns to spread without raising alarms.
To reduce risk, security teams must understand each platform’s unique policies and processes for removing fraudulent content and dedicate resources to proactive monitoring and takedown.
How Fortra Brand Protection Can Help
To stay ahead of evolving counterfeit and impersonation threats on social media, Fortra Brand Protection offers specialized Social Media Protection services, monitoring thousands of platforms—from mainstream social networks to forums, paste sites, and blogs—with unmatched visibility and expert curation. When suspicious content is detected, our team springs into action using platform-specific takedown playbooks, optimized workflows, and robust relationships with social platforms to remove threats swiftly and effectively, minimizing damage to your brand and customers.
