A fake social media profile can lead customers to counterfeit products and fraudulent domains, exposing gaps in how organizations detect and combat cross-channel brand abuse.

Learn how cross-channel brand abuse unfolds in today’s digital landscape and how organizations can use coordinated monitoring, validation, escalation, and enforcement to protect their brands and customers.

One Fake Profile Leads to Several Points of Exposure

Customers increasingly encounter brands on public platforms that sit outside an organization’s direct control. This creates more opportunities for bad actors to misuse trusted identities and intellectual property (IP)—and more places where they can initiate fraud. Consider a customer who sees a social media post recommending a popular skincare product from a familiar global brand. The product, post, and profile all appear legitimate, so the customer clicks a link that sends them to a counterfeit marketplace listing, which then directs them to a cloned website on a lookalike domain.

This kind of cross-channel attack reflects the serious and complex threat environment organizations face today. In fact, in the CISO Outlook 2026 report, CSC surveyed 300 senior executives about the cyber threats confronting their organizations. Seventy-two percent described the level of cybersecurity threats in 2025 as “critical” or “very critical.”

Within that environment, respondents expect social media impersonation and defamation to pose the greatest cyber threat over the next three years, four spots higher than in last year’s survey.

Social media platforms create particularly vulnerable points of exposure because organizations increasingly use them to sell products, share information, and connect with customers. Plus, as the report notes, people may tend to lower their guard on social media, making them less likely to question whether content, profiles, or offers are legitimate.

Fragmented Monitoring Obscures the Broader Campaign

The volume and fragmentation of public digital content complicate detection. A social media account, marketplace listing, mobile app, website, or search result may reveal only one small part of a broader fraud campaign. And when separate teams or tools review each channel, they may miss the common identity, language, imagery, or destination that connects the activity.

These visibility gaps can delay responses. They also help explain why 57% of respondents report using AI-based monitoring and enforcement solutions, up from 50% in the previous survey, to shore up their cybersecurity defenses.

Domains Give Cross-Channel Abuse a Destination

In the scenario where a customer sees a fake social media post promoting a counterfeit skincare product, they end up on a cloned website on a lookalike domain. The domain gives the deception a convincing destination where the actual fraud occurs.

While the fake post and profile establish credibility, the fraudulent domain can provide infrastructure used to collect payment information, harvest credentials, distribute malware, or sell counterfeit products. Without that endpoint, bad actors have fewer opportunities to convert customer trust into financial gain or other harmful outcomes.

Therefore, organizations should view abuse across social media, marketplaces, apps, and websites as potentially related to domain activity. Keyword-based monitoring of domain registrations may help spot potential malicious campaigns where users unknowingly disclose credentials or send payments.

Cross-Channel Abuse Demands a Coordinated Approach

Ultimately, cross-channel abuse can affect more than cybersecurity. When a fake profile connects copied content with a counterfeit listing or a deceptive domain, it can confuse customers, erode brand trust, and expose the organization to legal or regulatory consequences.

Taken together, the findings support a four-part online brand protection response built on the following steps: visibility, validation, escalation, and enforcement.

First, always-on monitoring across an organization’s digital footprint can reveal connections among activity on different channels. This broader view helps organizations identify risks to their brand, customer trust, and public-facing digital assets.

Second, while AI-based automation can scan large volumes of public content and surface suspected abuse quickly, human oversight can add context, validate findings, and identify which cases require enforcement.

Third, an effective escalation process gives legal, communications, security, and other teams a common way to report suspected abuse. Combined with monitoring data, they may determine whether a fraudulent campaign is active and coordinate an appropriate response.

Fourth, enforcement turns validated findings into action. A takedown provider with a proven record can progress an initial alert to network partners for takedowns.

A standardized monitoring and enforcement process can help protect customers and the brand, while reducing an organization’s financial, legal, and regulatory exposure.

Download CISO Outlook 2026 to explore the research behind today’s evolving cybersecurity threats.