Lookalike-Domain and Brand-Impersonation Monitoring for Credit Unions
Your members trust your name. Fraudsters know it, and they register domains that imitate your credit union to harvest logins, send spoofed emails, and reroute member funds. VigilDNS watches for those domains continuously and hands you the evidence, starting at $79 a month with no sales call.
The threat aimed at credit unions
The NCUA has warned that fraudsters spoof credit union websites, and even the NCUA's own site, using addresses that look official but carry a subtle change: a zero in place of a letter O, an extra word, or a different suffix. Members who land on one of these pages enter their online-banking credentials directly into an attacker's hands. From there the path is familiar: account takeover, fraudulent wire and ACH requests, and emails that appear to come from your domain.
Here is the part most typo-checkers miss. A large share of financial-institution impersonation does not rely on a misspelling of your name at all. Attackers register generic-looking domains that combine words like "secure," "login," "verify," or "alerts" with your brand, for example yourcu-secure.com or login-yourcu.net. This is called combosquatting, and it is why monitoring built only on typo permutations leaves the most common attacks invisible. VigilDNS leads with combosquatting and page-level clone detection, not just typos.
Why credit unions are targeted, and underserved
Credit unions are member-facing, trusted, and community-rooted, which is exactly what makes your brand worth imitating. You are also fraud-focused and budget-aware, often buying through a league or cooperative. FFIEC examination expectations increasingly treat domain and brand-impersonation monitoring as part of a sound information-security program, yet the vendors built for it are priced for national banks. VigilDNS is built for institutions your size.
What VigilDNS watches for you
- Combosquatting and keyword lookalikes: brand-plus-keyword domains like yourcu-secure.com that typo tools ignore, plus homoglyphs and 11 permutation techniques in total.
- Page screenshots with side-by-side clone detection: we capture the live page and flag when it copies your member login or homepage, the clearest signal of an active phishing site.
- Mail-capable (MX) lookalikes: domains configured to send email, the ones used to spoof your staff and members. See SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
- Live Certificate Transparency monitoring: we catch lookalike domains the moment they request a TLS certificate, often before any page is live. See how CT monitoring works.
- AI threat verdicts: each finding gets an intent label, a confidence level, and a plain-language rationale, plus risk scoring so your small team triages the real threats first.
- Campaign clustering, dormant-threat detection, RDAP data, real-time alerts, team workspaces, and CSV export.
What we do not do
VigilDNS is detection and evidence, not a managed service. We do not file takedowns for you. Instead we assemble an evidence package, screenshots, certificate records, RDAP ownership data, and our verdict, so you or your counsel can file abuse reports with registrars and hosts. See how domain takedowns work. We also do not monitor social media, the dark web, or counterfeit marketplaces. We do the lookalike-domain layer thoroughly and stay in our lane.
Priced for a credit union, not an enterprise
Enterprise brand-protection platforms are quote-only and routinely land in five figures a year. Free typo tools detect names but give you no evidence, no scoring, and no clone detection. Almost nothing sits in between. VigilDNS does: published pricing starting at $79 a month for the Starter plan (5 domains, 3 seats, 24-hour scans), $199 for Team (20 domains, 10 seats, 12-hour scans), and $899 for Business (100 domains, 25 seats). Annual billing includes two months free. You can start today, self-serve, without a procurement cycle or a sales call.
| Approach | Detects combosquats and clones | Evidence and scoring | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise DRP suites | Yes | Yes | Quote-only, five figures |
| Free typo checkers | Typos only | No | Free, detection only |
| VigilDNS | Yes | Yes | From $79/mo, self-serve |
Frequently asked questions
Will VigilDNS catch domains that do not contain a misspelling of our name?
Yes, and this matters because most financial-impersonation domains are not simple typos. Our engine prioritizes combosquatting, brand-plus-keyword names like yourcu-login.com, alongside homoglyphs and typo variants, then captures the live page to check for a clone of your member login.
Does this help with our FFIEC and NCUA examinations?
Continuous lookalike-domain monitoring with documented findings supports the brand-impersonation and member-protection expectations examiners ask about. VigilDNS gives you dated records, risk scores, and exportable evidence you can show.
Can you take the fake sites down for us?
We produce the evidence package, but we do not file managed takedowns. You or your counsel use our screenshots, certificate data, and RDAP records to submit abuse reports. Many credit unions handle this in-house or through their league counsel.
How fast can we start?
Immediately. Run the free checker on your domain right now, then subscribe online. No demo or sales call is required.
See what is already registered against your name with our free typosquat checker, then review plans on the pricing page. Community bank? See community bank brand protection.