Azizi Developments is one of the leading private real estate developers in the UAE. The awareness of its brand and the projects the real developer is associated with has increased exponentially over the last few years. This has led to resellers, agents, and employees trying to leverage the name of Azizi and the brand to improve their credibility within the market – especially on social media. The content used was not unified, the frequency was irregular, and there were too many variations of the same profile floating around on different social media platforms.
The online presence of the company was also tainted by the presence of multiple websites created by different stakeholders with the intention to promote themselves as the official representative of the brand and its offerings. The level of service and dedication provided was not up to the company mark as was discovered, and this led to the overall brand image getting diluted in the eyes of the customer.
This was when Ankit Satsangi, head of cybersecurity at Azizi Developments, decided to find a way to prevent the proliferation of fake online profiles and properties. A simple search for social media risk monitoring led him to the discovery of ZeroFOX, which detects and remediates threats on social media platforms.
Spectrami, the local partner for ZeroFOX, implemented a system based on the threat intelligence provided by Satsangi, which offers a comprehensive visibility into what the real estate developer aims to achieve beyond the typical attack lifecycle – adding context and priority to global threats. With this insight, it took less than a day to set permissions, align keywords, tags, and other relevant information; Zerofox did a clean sweep of all the different properties that went against the corporate policy that Satsangi and his team had set in place.
Taking control and shutting down all the delinquent accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram was the first step. ZeroFOX efficiently and accurately targeted all the social platforms and reported every errant account that had been created along with contact information of the person responsible for the account. The security team then efficiently dealt with the account by shutting them down with prejudice and contacted the owners with cease and desist notice.
ZeroFOX has helped Satsangi to identify any websites that were made outside of the official websites deployed by the company – which were immediately disconnected, and site owners were notified.
“As smart cities expand, it is becoming more essential for real estate developers and investors to keep cybersecurity top of mind. A smart building can improve building and tenant efficiency but can also leave company information vulnerable to attacks. At Azizi Development, we have ensured that we have all the necessary cybersecurity measures are in place for protecting our intellectual property, customer data and brand image,” said Sandeep Jaiswal, deputy CEO of sales & marketing, Azizi Developments.
“Nearly 70 percent of customers go to an organisation’s Facebook page before making a buying decision and protecting brand reputation is a no-brainer for every modern marketing team. Identifying and removing fake or fraudulent social accounts are now a top priority. With ZeroFox we have ensured that customer Azizi Developments’ social media and digital platforms are protected with automated remediation,” said Anand Choudha, CEO and president of Spectrami.
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