Best Domain and Brand Monitoring Tools in the Market Today: A Quick Guide

Brand and domain strategy and protection go hand in hand, as your domain is an integral part of your business identity. Brand abuse is not limited to selling counterfeit goods and copyright infringement, however.

Securing your brand also means protecting your domain from cyber attackers who continuously attempt to breach your network or abuse your vulnerable systems as part of a more significant attack. Some threat actors also impersonate your brand for their phishing schemes, spam campaigns, and other attacks like spoofing and domain cybersquatting that aim to steal victims’ credentials and personally identifiable information (PII). 

All these threats can have severe ramifications like loss of confidential data, revenue, and customer trust. Covering all your bases to ensure domain and brand protection can be a big task, but it is manageable with the best brand and domain monitoring tools. 

In this post, we examine products that can aid cybersecurity professionals in protecting their organizations’ brands and domains from various types of fraud, abuse, and attacks.

Provider #1: WhoisXML API

WhoisXML API has various offerings that can help organizations protect their domains and, thus, their brands.

Brand Monitor alerts users to cases of typosquatting and other forms of cybersquatting by keeping track of keywords associated with their brands or domain names. It has a typo generator feature that automatically creates possible misspelled variations of each keyword users wish to monitor, allowing them to spot fake versions of their sites that can harm their reputation.

Brand Monitor is also useful when keeping an eye out for potential trademark and copyright infringers who may be cashing in on their good names, in addition to being alerted to what the competition is doing, notably through Brand Alert API (the API variant of Brand Monitor).

Brand Monitor’s outputs look like this:

Domain Monitor, meanwhile, allows users to check more than 6.7 billion historical WHOIS records compiled over 10 years and to get alerts when domains of interest change hands. This information can be useful to avoid attacks from threat actors who may have bought a new or recently-expired domain for illegal domain parking, brand impersonation, and malicious redirects.

Here is an example of Domain Monitor’s output:

Provider #2: Online-Domain-Tools

Online-Domain-Tools offers Online Domain Monitor, which specializes in tracking changes made to the WHOIS and Domain Name System (DNS) databases. By keying in the domain names users wish to track, they can learn more such as their registrar details, name servers, availability, and more. Alerts on domain-related changes are sent to users via email.

Provider #3: BrandShelter

BrandShelter’s Domain Monitoring flags registered domains that match your trademarks and brand names. It alerts users to any potential counterfeit sites that can figure in phishing and other cyberattacks that abuse their companies. It also provides a list of potential typosquatting domains that can damage your brand reputation should their owners turn out to be cybercriminals.

Provider #4: DomainTools

DomainTools has similar offerings in this space. Users can detect signs of brand abuse by tracking keywords and associated strings with Brand Monitor. Its dashboard shows changes made to domain records. Aside from monitoring possible abuse, users can also use this tool to see what their competitors are up to (i.e., new product releases, etc.).

Users who want to track specific domains can rely on Domain Monitor. It allows them to check for WHOIS record-related modifications on-demand or via alerts. It is useful for domainers who are waiting for a domain name’s registration to expire, for instance, so they can be first in line to purchase it.

Provider #5: CSC

CSC’s Domain Name Monitoring scours the Internet for potential cases of trademark infringement against users’ organizations. Its database covers both the generic and country-code top-level domain (TLD) spaces, including internationalized domain names (IDNs), to give users comprehensive information. The findings from the tool can be handy when taking legal action against abusers.

A company’s brand represents it. Securing it from all threats can be daunting and time-consuming, but with the right set of brand and domain monitoring tools, users can take a proactive stance toward protection. That said, we’ll leave the choice for the best brand and domain monitoring tools up to you.