A new global report on brand protection has unveiled a number of poor practices in domain security and an increase in the impact of cybercrime around the world.

Brand infringement has increased over the last year, targeting almost one in four global enterprise domains. To assess the extent of the issue, US-based software company MarkMonitor has carried out a global research on enterprise brand protection, showing the ways in which cybercrime affects businesses around the world.

MarkMonitor's research has unveiled that almost 62% of companies reported that cyber attacks have affected their business in the last year. However, only 13% of the surveyed organisations have adopted a combined approach; the rest has chosen to embrace a siloed mentality — leaving domain risk mitigation mostly in the hands of IT or IT security teams.

As domains move increasingly to the core of organisational and brand identity, it is fundamental to adopt appropriate measures to protect them. However, online brand protection is not just about keeping a domain safe; according to MarkMonitor's VP of marketing Chrissie Jamieson, "it's about having a wider, holistic brand protection strategy in place that addresses domains, fraud and other forms of infringement, and involves a number of departments within the business."

According to the report, many businesses have still a long way to go in that sense. When it comes to domain renewal processes, 26% of the surveyed brands rely solely on renewal notices, 21% on a single person to manage the process, whereas only one in four companies has put together a comprehensive plan involving cross-department collaboration.

MarkMonitor's research, which furthermore examines how Brexit and GDPR have impacted online businesses in the past year, shows that companies around the world still need to embrace a more collaborative approach to brand and domain protection, as cyber threats evolve and become increasingly complex over time.

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