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How fakes work and how to take them down

Guides, checklists and templates on phishing, fake websites, takedowns, evidence and brand protection. Written for marketing, security and legal teams, with sources and the actual reporting channels for the EU, the UK and Switzerland.

Under attack? See the response plan All 63 articles

63 articles across 5 topics, each in English and German. More deep dives, certificate fraud and lookalike domains are next.

At a glance

5 topicsevery article in English and German

Answer firstevery article opens with the short answer

Sourcedfigures and rules link to primary sources, as of November 2026

Europereporting channels for the EU, the UK and Switzerland

Start here

Three articles to begin with. One explains the topic, two help when it counts.

The pillar guide covers every form of brand impersonation and links to the deep dives. The takedown guide and the response plan help once a fake is already live.

Takedowns11 min

How to take down a fake website: the complete guide

Every route to get a fake or phishing site offline: hosting provider, registrar, DNS, Google Safe Browsing and UDRP, in the order that works.

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All articles

Phishing, takedowns and brand protection

63 articles on fake websites, cloned logins, takedowns, evidence and building a brand protection program.

63 of 63 articles

Takedowns6 min

What to do when a host ignores your abuse report

No answer from the hosting provider? How to follow up, when to bring in the upstream network, the registrar and Google, and what works with hosts abroad.

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Takedowns5 min

Taking down a site behind Cloudflare or another CDN

Cloudflare doesn't host the site, but it forwards your report to the operator and the host. How to report fake sites behind a CDN and what happens next.

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Takedowns5 min

The resurfacing problem: when a fake site comes back

Why removed fake sites return on new domains, how to spot the comeback early and why it pays to keep watching closed cases after the takedown.

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Evidence and investigation5 min

Screenshots as evidence: making them hold up when it counts

Timestamp, full URL, the whole page, desktop and mobile: what turns a screenshot of a fake website into evidence that holds up. With a checklist.

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Evidence and investigation5 min

Reading TLS certificates to investigate phishing sites

What a fake site's TLS certificate reveals about issuer, timing and related domains, how to find it and how certificate logs warn you about new fakes.

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Evidence and investigation5 min

Hosting and IP lookups: finding where a fake site really lives

How to find the real host behind a domain, a CDN or a proxy: IP address, network records, abuse contact and the common pitfalls along the way.

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Evidence and investigation5 min

DNS records explained for fraud investigators

A, MX, NS, TXT and CNAME in plain words: what DNS records reveal about a suspicious domain, who runs it and whether it is set up for phishing emails.

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Evidence and investigation5 min

The evidence package your law firm actually needs

What law firms ask for after a takedown and how to hand it over in one package: case summary, raw data, log, provider correspondence, rights and damage.

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Evidence and investigation5 min

Archiving fake sites before they vanish

Why the page you report today may be gone tomorrow, and how to make a solid archived copy: in a public web archive, in the WARC format or as your own copy.

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Evidence and investigation5 min

Hidden fakes: pages that only show up with the right parameters

Some fake pages only appear with the full link, only on mobile or only in certain countries. How cloaking works and how you find these pages anyway.

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Evidence and investigation5 min

OSINT basics for brand protection teams

Free sources and simple techniques for investigating suspicious domains: RDAP, DNS, network records, certificate logs, web archives and ad libraries.

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Playbooks and product5 min

AI Fraud Protect setup: ready in about 15 minutes

Protected domains, reference pages, ignore list, scan schedule and report widget: how to set up AI Fraud Protect in about 15 minutes.

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Playbooks and product7 min

Takedown case study: from widget report to removal

A fictional but realistic case: an HR team reports a fake verification page through the report widget. Here is the path to removal, step by step.

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Takedowns11 min

How to take down a fake website: the complete guide

Every route to get a fake or phishing site offline: hosting provider, registrar, DNS, Google Safe Browsing and UDRP, in the order that works.

Read article

Evidence and investigation9 min

Securing evidence of a fake website: what to capture and how

Before a fake site disappears: which screenshots, URLs, domain, DNS, hosting and certificate data to secure, how to store them and what lawyers need.

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Playbooks and product8 min

Building a brand protection program from scratch

Roles, scope, detection sources, playbooks, evidence and metrics: how to set up a program that finds and removes fakes of your brand continuously.

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Detect6 min

Quishing: when the QR code leads to the fake

Why criminals hide phishing links in QR codes, where fake codes appear, what the 2025 data shows and how brands keep their own QR codes trustworthy.

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Basics6 min

AI-built phishing sites: what has changed, and what hasn't

Generative AI tools now clone a login page from a text prompt. What that means for detection, user training and how fast you need to respond.

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Detect6 min

Fake support pages: the impersonation you might miss

Scammers pose as your help desk in ads, search results and social media. How fake support pages work, how to find them and how to remove them.

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Basics6 min

Phishing kits: how cloned pages are mass-produced

What a phishing kit contains, how phishing-as-a-service platforms like LabHost worked and the traces kits leave for investigators and takedowns.

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Basics7 min

Why two-factor login doesn't stop every phishing page

Real-time phishing proxies capture passwords, codes and session cookies. Which MFA methods resist phishing and what brands can do for their users.

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Detect7 min

Brand impersonation in search ads: how to find and report it

Fake ads bid on your brand and send searchers to copies of your site. How to find them, document them and report them to Google and Microsoft.

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Coming next

These topics are growing next

Every topic gets a pillar guide and deep dives, again in English and German.

13 articles in progress

Certificate fraud

Fake verification pages, forged qualifications and how issuers stop them.

12 articles in progress

Domains and typosquatting

Lookalike domains, homoglyphs and watchlists for your brand.

Which fakes already use your name?

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