Takedown: How to Speed Up Removal of Threats Impersonating Executives and VIPs

Criminals can impersonate executives or other well-known personalities that consumers associate with a brand. This not only makes malicious content appear legitimate but can also make the takedown more challenging, as fraudulent "commercial" content and brand abuse are more common scams. Moreover, identity theft and impersonation can also lead to reputational damage or become a building block for other scams, such as those where criminals send fake messages to employees.

Furthermore, when executives are well-known, consumers associate them with the brand even when the logo does not appear in the same context.

For this type of infringement to be identified, monitoring solutions like the Axur Platform need to know what to look for. By submitting their photos, executives and VIPs help the algorithm detect their likeness on the web, ensuring that impersonation attempts are detected. Axur uses Visual Computing with Artificial Intelligence to distinguish faces from each other, and the platform needs sufficient data to provide accurate detections.

This is where SafeShare comes in. It is a direct link between the Axur Platform, the executives, and the VIPs being protected. This ensures they can securely fill in any required data to improve the monitoring or complete a takedown – all through a user-friendly interface.

Leadership Engagement for Improved Takedowns

Axur customers have access to SafeShare, a tool that facilitates senior executives and other VIPs' direct cooperation with the content monitoring and takedown process, helping to neutralize threats that abuse their identity or appearance. Executives and VIPs can access the SafeShare link from any device (computer, mobile phone, or tablet), upload photos using their device's camera or gallery, and effortlessly fill in all the data the Axur Platform needs to protect their online identity.

SafeShare employs advanced encryption to maintain confidentiality throughout the process and facilitate faster collaboration.

If it is not immediately clear why this helps fight online scams, you may be unfamiliar with takedowns and some of the challenges that arise when people try to protect their brand or personal image online.

Scams almost always use some kind of trick to gain the victim's trust. Since the web lacks native protections to prevent impersonation, abusing a well-known brand or person is common in phishing scams, fraudulent sales, and malware campaigns. But we are not defenseless.

When criminals build their campaigns, they often rely on third-party platforms and hosting providers. They need some presence on a social network or an ad – and these platforms do not allow impersonation. Through a process known as takedown, it is possible to eliminate the threat or at least prevent any fake content from reaching most users.

After acknowledging that the content is infringing the terms of service, the platform or provider will remove the content and may even suspend the malicious user entirely, protecting your brand and reducing the criminal's incentive to attempt the scam again.

Getting this result is not always straightforward, however. The takedown process generally involves sending a notification to the platform or service provider, but malicious individuals could abuse this process to shut down legitimate users or harm competing businesses. Therefore, takedown requests must prove their case against the infringing content.

Axur's expertise in takedowns already ensures that the request is sent through the proper channels with a precise justification for why the content must be removed according to each platform's terms of service. High-quality takedown is usually handled faster, leading to a lower Mean Time To Contain (MTTC). 

In simpler terms, the more accurate the takedown process, the faster the threat is removed.

Benefits of SafeShare

The cybersecurity team or IT staff often operates cybersecurity platforms. Since SafeShare allows executives and other protected individuals to fill in their data and upload photos directly and securely, executives do not need to share their data with anyone else.

This has several benefits:

• User-Friendly: SafeShare is built for end users.
• Easier Collaboration & Engagement: People feel more confident in private interactions, so collaboration occurs faster and with less friction.
• Maintains Confidentiality: Executives and VIPs avoid transmitting the required data to someone else, maintaining the confidentiality of their personal information.
• Scalable & Accurate: It is possible to create a separate link for each executive or VIP being protected, allowing each individual to fill in their data. This ensures that the information is accurate, saving time spent validating accuracy and integrity.
• Faster Takedowns: The result is a quicker takedown process, reducing the damages caused by impersonation attempts.

Get Started with SafeShare

In "Monitoring Settings" inside the Axur Platform, click on the "Copy form link" next to the list of executives and VIPs and send the link directly to the executive. They can securely fill in their data using this link on a computer, mobile phone, or tablet.

Executives and VIPs can also easily send photos from their device gallery or take selfies at the time of completion. This speeds up the documentation process for monitoring and takedown requests, ensuring a streamlined experience for leadership engagement.

You can learn more about our solution if you are not yet using the Axur Platform to protect yourself or your business leadership.