Clients book and pay through links sent in your name.
A fake booking or payment link is the pattern to watch. Attackers read your domain. We read it first and show you what is open.
Attackers now use AI to read a business the way a search engine does: the website, directories, search results and what AI assistants say. Each finding we hand you is human-verified before your assessment is released.
What we read for salons
- The records that tell inboxes whether to refuse email sent as you (DMARC, SPF and DKIM).
- Breach records for addresses at your own domain.
- Names made from yours, each asked whether it is registered and set up for mail.
- The certificate your website answers with: its name, its dates and who issued it.
- The headers and cookies your website sends to every visitor.
- Common addresses for configuration files, code folders and cloud storage.
The rule, from its source: What does each US state's data breach law ask a business to do?
How the fraud works: Business email compromise, explained
How it reaches you
Where an attack uses a name made from yours, the first sign is a new registration. Under the watch, LeakTrace reads the names made from yours every hour and the day's public list of new registrations each night. A name in the certificate logs is seen within minutes of its certificate being logged.
Four steps from left to right. Someone registers a name made from yours, sets up mail or a sign-in page on it, then a message or a call reaches your people and money or a code goes to them. The watch reads the first two steps. The third is your own step: telling your clients how you ask for payment.
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Step 1
A name made from yours is registered
Someone registers a domain made from your business's name: one letter changed, a word added or another ending.
Anyone can see: The registration record and, once a certificate is issued for it, its entry in the public certificate logs.
What LeakTrace does: Under the watch, a name that shows is dated on your record, with what it showed.
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Step 2
Mail or a sign-in page is set up on it
Mail is switched on for the name, or it answers with a page that looks like your website or a sign-in page.
Anyone can see: The mail record and the page it answers with.
What LeakTrace does: LeakTrace reads its mail and its page and grades it. With the watch, or for the names the look-alike response covers, we send the takedown request in your business's name once you approve it. The registrar decides. Your page shows its answer once it is recorded.
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Step 3
The message or the call reaches a person
An email from it reaches someone at your business or one of your clients. Or a caller who says they are from IT support sends someone to the sign-in page and asks for the code.
Anyone can see: Nothing. It happens inside a mailbox or on a phone.
What LeakTrace does: LeakTrace never goes inside a mailbox or a call. This is the one step only your business can take.
Your step: Tell your clients that you never change payment details by email. Any such note gets a call to a number they already have. Sign in with a passkey where your mail system offers one: a code can be passed on from a fake page. A passkey cannot.
How to set up your step
Tell your clients how you ask for payment. Put one line on the booking confirmation and the invoice footer: "We never change payment details by email. Call the number you already have for us."
- What changes
- Your clients read one extra line. A request that breaks it is easy to spot.
- Stays on?
- Yes. The line can stay on every letter, invoice and first email.
- To undo
- It is wording, not a setting. Take the line out of those templates and it is gone.
Sign in with a passkey where your mail system offers one. Each person adds a passkey in their email account's security settings, on the phone or computer they use.
- What changes
- Signing in can use a fingerprint, a face or the device PIN. A fake sign-in page gets nothing it can pass on.
- Stays on?
- Yes. It is meant to stay on for every account.
- To undo
- A passkey is removed in the same security settings. Sign-in then asks for the password and code again.
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Step 4
The money or the code moves
A client sends a booking deposit to new bank details, or a code passed on lets someone else sign in.
Anyone can see: Nothing, until someone notices.
What LeakTrace does: Under the watch, the name's first two steps are dated on your record: when it appeared and what it showed.
If a payment went to new details, the first call is to the bank, that day.
How to make that call
If a payment went to new details, call the bank that day. Call the bank's fraud line on the number printed on your card or statement, that day. Then tell the police.
- What changes
- The bank can attempt to recall the payment.
- Stays on?
- It is a one-time step, not a setting.
- To undo
- There is nothing to undo.
Where an attack uses a name made from yours, we see it first.
The reporting deadlines that apply to you.
Notify affected residents when certain personal information is breached. Timing and content differ.
Report a breach that creates a real risk of significant harm to the Privacy Commissioner and tell the people affected.
A summary of published rules, not legal advice. The Rules and Insurance Briefing names the rules that apply to you.
Nothing on the public record in the last 90 days.
We hold no public report from Canada or the United States in the last 90 days that says how attackers got into a business in this line of work. What we read for this line of work is above.
What changes after your assessment and how often we look.
- 01A new vendor or tool is allowed to send as you.
- 02Your mail moves to a new provider.
- 03A new portal or subdomain goes live.
- 04A certificate lapses.
- 05Your addresses turn up in a fresh breach.
- 06A look-alike of your name is registered.
On monitoring: email settings every 5 minutes, new certificates for your domain and for look-alikes of your name within minutes, new look-alike registrations hourly; everything else daily, with newly exploited flaws matched to your website’s software within a day and an alert the same day. The first month of monitoring comes with the assessment.
Human-verified. The full watch, the proof for every finding and the fix.
What the fourth document is. A dated record of what was read from outside your business, verified by a person at LeakTrace before release. LeakTrace Inc. issues it as a company, with a reference and a fingerprint anyone can check at getleaktrace.com/verify/. No individual signs it. It is not a certification, not a penetration test, not legal or compliance advice and not a statement about your internal systems.
We close it: We give you the fix for each finding and re-check from outside until it is closed.
The one change we can make ourselves is to your email records and only when you approve each step, where your DNS host allows it.
Where it does not, you get the exact records to paste.
Your evidence pack:
- an owner summary
- the technical evidence with the fix for each finding
- a rules and insurance briefing
- a dated assessment record
It doubles as your insurance renewal evidence pack:
- the outside questions insurers commonly ask at renewal, each shown with its evidence
- forged-email protection where we reach your DNS host, one click per step
- the Rules and Insurance Briefing, which sets each of your findings beside the plain terms a renewal application uses
The assessment comes with an AI security agent on your dashboard: ask it about any finding in plain English and it answers from your own business's findings.
Our AI agents operate externally. They never log in, never install anything and never touch your internal systems. The one change they can make, to your email records, happens only when you approve it.
See what is open before anyone else does.
We read from outside, find each way in first and show it with a check anyone can re-run. No access, nothing tested, no obligation.
See a sample reading → An invented business, so you see what arrives before you ask for yours.
- We read your business from outside.
- You see what is open, with the proof for the lead finding.
- If it is worth it, you order.
What happens if you go ahead. More at getleaktrace.com/see-it-first/.
Read the transcript
- 72 hours. One domain. Nothing to install.
- Discover. Every way in, found from outside.
- Validate. Every finding, proven. Dated and checkable by anyone.
- Close. Forged email: one click per step, where we reach your DNS host and you approve it.
- You get the fix for the rest, step by step, and we re-check until it is closed.
- Monitor. On monitoring: email settings, look-alikes and new host names re-checked every hour. Alerts within the hour.
- Every paid assessment is human-verified before release.
- The outside record of trust. Attackers read businesses with AI. LeakTrace reads them first. getleaktrace.com/see-it-first/