Squatters vs. Snipers: Why Your Anti-BEC Strategy Needs a Pre-Attack Radar
For Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), Business Email Compromise (BEC) is the ultimate headache. It is the costliest cybercrime globally, yet it often bypasses the most expensive Secure Email Gateways (SEGs).
Why? Because traditional security tools are looking for malware or spoofed headers. They aren't looking for a legitimate email sent from a legitimate server that just happens to be owned by an imposter.
If you are currently offering "Brand Monitoring" to your clients, you are likely drowning your analysts in noise—thousands of "parked" domains that pose no immediate threat. To truly protect your clients (and your margins), you need to stop chasing Squatters and start hunting Snipers.
Here is why ThreatNG is the essential layer your stack is missing to stop BEC before the first email is ever sent.
The Anatomy of a Weaponized Domain: The "Hollywood Set" Analogy
To understand why standard defenses fail, we have to look at the infrastructure of a deception attack. Imagine two office buildings standing across the street from each other.
1. The Headquarters (The Real Domain) This is your client’s legitimate domain (company.com). It houses real employees, real data, and has a secure mailroom (SPF/DMARC) that the world trusts.
2. The Hollywood Set (The Permutation) Across the street is a look-alike building (cornpany.com or company.co). From a distance, the signage and bricks look identical to the Headquarters. This is a Domain Permutation.
Most monitoring tools stop here. They tell you, "Hey, someone built a set across the street." But a set is just a facade. It’s a billboard. It can’t hurt anyone yet.
3. The Active Mailroom (The MX Record) This is the game-changer. The difference between a harmless parked domain and a weapon is the Mail Exchange (MX) Record.
When an attacker adds an MX record to that Hollywood Set, they are hiring a mail service (like Google Workspace or Zoho) to operate inside the fake building. Now, that fake building can send and receive mail.
When ceo@cornpany.com sends an urgent wire transfer request to your client’s CFO, it travels through the legitimate internet and arrives in the inbox. Crucially, it passes SPF and DMARC checks because the attacker owns the fake domain and configured the authentication correctly.
The email is technically "valid," so the gateway lets it through. The victim sees the familiar name, misses the subtle typo, and the trap is sprung.
The Attack Chain: From Registration to Ransom
The window to stop this attack is small. Attackers follow a predictable path:
The Setup (Loading the Gun): The attacker registers the permutation and immediately configures MX records. This is the moment the domain transitions from a "Squatter" to a "Sniper."
The Authentication (The Camouflage): They set up valid SPF/DKIM records. They want to be verified.
The Recon (The Targeting): They scrape LinkedIn profiles to identify your client's VIPs (the CFO) and the likely victims (Accounts Payable).
The Execution (The Lure): The BEC email is sent. "Urgent wire transfer needed."
The Cash Out: The victim, trusting the "valid" email, processes the payment.
Your "Why" for ThreatNG: Operational Efficiency & Predictive Defense
Most MSSPs wait until Step 4 (The Execution) to detect the threat. By then, it’s often too late. ThreatNG shifts your defense to Step 1.
We filter the noise to give you the signal.
Noise Reduction: Thousands of domains might look like your client's brand. ThreatNG filters out the 99% of harmless "parked" domains to focus your analysts on the 1% that have active MX records.
Pre-Crime Detection: Finding a typosquat with a fresh MX record is the digital equivalent of watching an adversary load a weapon. You can initiate a takedown request days before the phishing campaign launches.
Bypassing Traditional Controls: We highlight the "Cousin Domains" that will sail right through your client's email gateway, allowing you to blacklist the domain globally before it bypasses the perimeter.
The Questions Every MSSP Should Ask
If you are looking to differentiate your service offering and move from "reactive" to "proactive," consider these four questions:
"How much analyst time are we wasting investigating parked domains?" Stop burning hours on dead ends. Automate the triage. ThreatNG instantly separates the inactive pages from the active threats.
"Do we offer a 'Pre-Attack' BEC service?" Are you waiting for the phishing email to hit the gateway, or are you alerting the client when the attack infrastructure is built? Moving "Left of Bang" is a premium service differentiator.
"Can we detect the 'Trusted' Imposter?" Standard security relies on SPF/DKIM failing. When an attacker owns the domain, those checks pass. ThreatNG identifies the existence of the domain itself as the risk.
"Can we map the target context?" ThreatNG doesn't just find the domain; we link it to exposed LinkedIn Profiles. We can tell you, "This typosquat was just weaponized with mail capabilities, AND we found your client's CFO profile is exposed." Now you aren't just reporting a vulnerability; you're predicting a targeted hit on a VIP.
Conclusion
Your clients pay you to stay one step ahead of the attacker. In the world of BEC, that means spotting the fake building before they open the mailroom.
ThreatNG provides the external visibility and MX-validated intelligence you need to stop the Snipers, ignore the Squatters, and secure your clients against the threats their gateways can't see.
