Customer story
How Arena Group moved from reactive domain risk to proactive brand protection
After a sophisticated attempted impersonation highlighted a gap that was difficult to close with existing controls alone, Arena Group turned to Have I Been Squatted to monitor threats across its brands, reduce noise, and build a more proactive approach to protection.
Arena Group designs and delivers temporary infrastructure for public and private events, conferences and exhibitions, as well as governmental and industrial applications. Large programs, tight timelines and a widely recognized name mean clients, suppliers and partners interact with the brand under pressure: lookalike domains and impersonation are not abstract risks. Protecting the Arena portfolio means watching what gets registered and weaponised on the open web in parallel with live delivery, not only what lands in the inbox.
Reactive → Proactive
Domain risk posture
Multi-brand
Continuous portfolio coverage
Legal-led
Monitoring and takedown workflows
The triggering incident#
The shift was driven by a concrete event, not a vague worry about domain abuse. A sophisticated impersonation attempt used a brand-related email channel to steer a client toward a fraudulent payment. When that succeeded, it became obvious that external domain and lookalike visibility was a gap the group could not paper over with awareness training alone. What had been easy to defer became an operational priority overnight.
“A serious impersonation incident made the risk impossible to ignore. Have I Been Squatted helped us move from reactive awareness to proactive protection.
”
What was missing before onboarding#
Before that, domain monitoring sat in the gaps between teams. Access and management lived loosely around Marketing. IT ran phishing simulations and awareness exercises from time to time. But there was no formal owner, no structured day-to-day process around domain abuse prevention, and no continuous view of what was being registered in or around the Arena brand portfolio.
Manual monitoring could not cover the portfolio#
Manual monitoring was never going to be realistic. Arena manages several brands and trademarks across markets, and an in-house attempt would have meant someone tracking and reviewing suspicious registrations by hand. The team did not have the resources, and even if it had, the coverage would have been thin and inconsistent.
“We knew the risk existed, but we didn't have a clear, proactive way to monitor it. With multiple brands and domains to protect, doing that manually was never going to be realistic.
”
Interpretation beats discovery alone#
The harder problem was not finding lookalike domains. It was interpreting them. Many Arena brand names are common words, "arena" itself appears widely across sectors and languages, and that creates genuine ambiguity. Not every similar-looking domain is a threat, but missing the wrong one is expensive. A useful platform needed to do more than surface matches; it needed to help separate legitimate activity from the small subset that actually warranted action.
“The challenge for us is that many of our brand names are common words, so there is a lot of noise. Have I Been Squatted helps us separate legitimate activity from the domains that may actually need attention.
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Selecting Have I Been Squatted#
Arena's external IT partner, Abussi, introduced Have I Been Squatted and gave it a strong recommendation, which made the initial decision easier. The team weighed up handling it internally, but the realistic scope of the work, across multiple brands, languages and registries, ruled that out. Once the first scans ran, the value was visible quickly: rapid identification of potential exposure across the portfolio, and a structured view of what to watch.
Monitoring and escalation in Legal#
Today, Have I Been Squatted is used primarily by the Arena Group Legal team. The work is monitoring-led, with takedowns initiated when an alert crosses the threshold from noise into credible risk. The platform surfaces what is happening across the brand portfolio; the analysis and feedback from the Have I Been Squatted team add the interpretation needed to decide whether to act or to keep watching.
“What helps most is the analysis behind the alerts. It gives us the context to understand what is worth monitoring, what can be ignored, and when action may actually be needed.
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Confidence and clearer oversight#
The change is most visible in posture rather than volume. Domain risk is now an area that is being actively managed, with consistent oversight, faster recognition of potential issues, and less reliance on someone happening to notice. Arena did not need to build a specialist internal capability from scratch to get there.
“The biggest change is confidence. We know this area is being actively monitored, potential threats are being assessed quickly, and we are no longer relying on a reactive approach.
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What comes next#
The work continues. Arena wants to keep tightening the line between low-risk noise and serious threats, build internal awareness around domain and brand protection, and strengthen the processes that sit around the platform. With monitoring, analysis and a partner in place, the next steps are about depth rather than starting from zero.
Domain Protection
Protect your brand from typosquatting.
Join security teams using Have I Been Squatted to monitor malicious domains, phishing infrastructure, and brand impersonation across the open web.