Fraudsters are getting more sophisticated about how they set up and make adjustments to brand impersonation scam sites — not just for phishing, but for all kinds of consumer fraud. A recent analysis by security researchers at Allure Security illustrates how brand impersonation sites are born, how they progress, and the evolutionary steps that fraudsters are now taking to unleash a fully realized scam site.

The analysis was conducted on a cluster of 103 sites the researchers discovered at the tail end of 2021 that primarily focused on shoe brand companies. They found an interesting new trend among these sites that differed from the typical brand impersonation. Whereas most impersonation sites are built out-of-the box to closely mimic the brand they’re copying, these new sites did not.