Seqrite Reports 300% Surge in India Brand Impersonation and External Fraud

Seqrite, the enterprise security arm of Quick Heal Technologies Limited, has issued a comprehensive threat advisory on the escalation of multi-channel brand-impersonation campaigns targeting Indian organisations. Internal tracking compiled by researchers at Seqrite Labs revealed a surge of over 300% in brand impersonation attacks between 2024 and 2025. This structural shift has transformed traditional, isolated email spoofing into a complex fraud ecosystem involving pixel-perfect cloned websites, counterfeit mobile applications, and AI-generated social engineering content.

The advisory emphasises a critical vulnerability in modern corporate defence architectures: highly sophisticated cyberattacks increasingly unfold entirely outside the traditional corporate network boundary, meaning they do not trigger firewalls, appear in internal endpoint logs, or alert standard Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platforms.

The Mechanics of Perimeterless Fraud

By utilising automated website cloning tools and artificial intelligence, adversaries can duplicate a brand's digital identity to exploit consumer trust. A recent validation case documented by Seqrite Labs involved a phishing campaign targeting a mid-sized private banking infrastructure in Pune.

The attack sequence deployed localised, lookalike infrastructure:

• The Vector: Customers received automated text correspondence requesting credential updates following a routine security notification.

• The Lookalike Domain: The rogue asset—firstindiabnk.in—Cloned the bank's visual branding and was registered just three weeks prior to active deployment.

• The Impact: The campaign successfully defrauded 17 customers, compromising individual bank accounts for significant financial losses (including one instance of a Rs. 1.8 lakh extraction within a four-hour window) before internal security teams received an initial consumer complaint.

This operational pattern aligns with broader telemetry published in Seqrite’s India Cyber Threat Report 2026. The annual index recorded 265.52 million threat detections across more than 8 million Indian endpoints between October 2024 and September 2025, translating to an average of 505 blocks every minute. While Trojans and file infectors constituted nearly 70% of those internal system blocks, the growing blind spot for enterprise security leaders resides in unmanaged external zones where lookalike components mature long before hitting an endpoint.

Mitigating Legal and Regulatory Compliance Exposure

The implications of unchecked external impersonation extend beyond immediate financial fraud. Rogue infrastructure often serves as the initial entry mechanism for complex Business Email Compromise (BEC), corporate misinformation distribution, and system-wide account takeovers.

In India, these external threats intersect directly with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023. When lookalike platforms illegally harvest employee or consumer credentials, the compromised business faces elevated regulatory scrutiny and potential legal liabilities regarding data governance and breach readiness.

Deploying Proactive Digital Trust Defences

To help organisations transition from reactive incident management to proactive external defence, Seqrite has highlighted its Digital Risk Protection Services (DRPS). The monitoring system continuously tracks domain registrations, open-source repositories, social networks, and third-party mobile application stores. Upon discovering unauthorised brand deployment, the service coordinates directly with global registrars, hosting providers, and digital platform managers to execute rapid takedowns of the malicious infrastructure, shortening the operational fraud window.

To complement this external monitoring, the company integrates its Seqrite Data Privacy suite. This platform maps, classifies, and secures sensitive internal corporate datasets across hybrid environments, preventing unauthorised access if an external phishing campaign successfully harvests an employee's credentials. Furthermore, organisations can utilise Seqrite's interactive Digital Risks Calculator to evaluate their current external asset posture and establish mitigation priorities that align with native DPDP regulatory compliance mandates.