According to the Summer 2009 edition of the MarkMonitor Brandjacking Index?®, online pharmacies have increased their market footprint, growing to an estimated $11 billion in sales in 2009, up from an estimated $4 billion in 2007. The online supply chain “listings on B2B exchange sites “ shows strong signs of growth for bulk quantities of pills and active pharmaceutical ingredients in powder form, increasing 23 percent in 2009 from 2008. Listings for pharmaceuticals have grown 67 percent on B2B exchange sites since 2007, when MarkMonitor completed its first study of pharmaceutical brandjacking online.

To complete the study, MarkMonitor chose six leading prescription drug brands and examined nearly 20,000 instances of cybersquatting “ the practice of abusing trademarks within the domain name system; 3,000 online pharmacies and 652 B2B exchange listings for those brands during July 2009.

The Brandjacking Index also examined phishing trends for Q2 2009, revealing record levels of phishing attacks and attacks per organization. Payment services continue to be a popular target, representing 49 percent of the total number of phishing attacks in Q2 2009, up from 42 percent in Q1 2009. Social networks have also showed substantial increases in phishing attacks, increasing 168 percent from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009.

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