Online Impersonation Scams Using Social Engineering and Lookalike Domains

Threat actors are scaling impersonation-driven fraud by abusing trust signals—public figures, brands, and platform distribution—to lure victims into handing over money or sensitive information. One documented operation used celebrity impersonation tailored to Canadians, selecting locally relevant public figures and using social media ad targeting (e.g., geolocation and profile-based targeting) to constrain exposure to the intended country and increase conversion; the campaign also leveraged emotionally manipulative narratives (e.g., injury/misfortune) to accelerate engagement and reduce skepticism.

In parallel, domain-based impersonation (“digital squatting”) has increased materially, with reporting citing a 68% rise over five years and WIPO recording 6,200 domain disputes in 2025. Common techniques include typosquatting, combosquatting, TLD squatting, and homograph attacks, which route users to phishing or fraudulent payment pages that mimic legitimate brands; the trend is also driving reputational harm when victims receive low-quality or nonexistent services. Recommended mitigations emphasized in reporting include proactively registering defensive domains across multiple TLDs and monitoring for lookalike domains to reduce brand impersonation risk.