blog.brandprotect.com

Visit BrandProtect at the International Trademark Associations 134th Annual Meeting

Greg Barrow — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:30:00 GMT

More than 9,000 intellectual property professionals will convene May 5–9 in Washington, D.C. for INTA’s 2012 Annual Meeting – the premier trademark event for networking, continuing legal education, and committee and client meetings.

This year’s Annual Meeting will feature valuable skill-building workshops, industry breakouts, interactive table topics, and trademark law sessions focused on international topics; as well as an exhibition hall boasting nearly 100 exhibitors debuting new products and services to help protect your brand – and this is where you will find BrandProtect.

Why choose BrandProtect to protect your brand?

For over a decade, some of the world’s largest and most security sensitive organizations have been relying on BrandProtect to mitigate their online threats and protect their revenues, intellectual property rights and reputation. Our customers include global brands and leading financial institutions, including five of the top 10 banks in the world, as well as many small and mid-sized organizations.

Internet brand and trademark infringements along with other infractions can result in a range of unintended consequences including:

Misleading consumers and exposing the organization to liability.
Diverting consumer traffic from its intended destination and thus reducing potential revenues.
Falsely connecting corporate brands with illegal or offensive activities.
Even accidental abuses by authorized resellers or agents can lead to significant financial loses and potentially damage customer relationships.

BrandProtect’s Brand Abuse Protection services are a perfect complement to any brand governance, channel management and traditional intellectual property protection programs. In order to Prevent, Monitor, Understand and Act upon internet infractions, we offer a range of specialized services.

Through the use of proprietary technology, which is continually searching the internet, and human analysis, we formulate search strategies based on brand terms or key identifiers that are particular to your brand, business and industry. In this way we can identify web links, URLs and page content that may be potential threats to your intellectual property and brand.

What’s new at BrandProtect?

BrandProtect is continuously enhancing the protection services we offer our clients, and as a result - in addition to the current list of gTLDs that we are monitoring (.com, .net, .org, .info, .mobi, .aero), we are pleased to announce that, as part of our daily domain monitoring service we will now be monitoring domains in the .XXX space that have been registered with your trademark or a variation of your trademark.

For more information on the topic of .XXX we welcome you to learn more about it here:
.xxx domain monitoring.

Will you be attending INTA’s 2012 Annual Meeting? Let us know! We hope to see you there!

Why Health Care Professionals Should Monitor Social Media

Adriana Tayraco — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:17:00 GMT

The healthcare industry is falling behind when it comes to adapting to social media technologies and strategies. Professionals have even estimated the gap to be as big as 10 years. While other industries are fiercely engaging in conversations with customers and users, Doctor Offices and Hospitals have been more than cautious when approaching social media, with the vast majority of them completely avoiding it. What they don’t realize is that healthcare is really not that different from all other industries; patients are still talking about their experiences with hospitals and physicians and the conversation is going on strong without them.

Besides the obvious customer care oriented benefits of including social media in any medical practice, there is also the fact that patients have already been searching for health information online and their results are not always moderated by a physician. Very few doctors are available to offer clarity and knowledge and as a result patients tend to self-medicate based on information provided by someone across the globe who may or may not have any relevant medical knowledge.

The main reason why healthcare professionals haven’t added social media to their practice is accountability. While 60% of physicians and 65% of nurses are interested in using social networks for professional purposes [1], the risk associated with sharing inaccurate health information and dissemination of content by a healthcare professional or student is enough stop any initiative. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has made it even more challenging for health care professionals to participate in online conversations. Not only that, but privacy concerns have also been raised by both parties, patients do not want to have their information disclosed and doctors do not feel comfortable blurring boundaries between their personal and professional lives.

So why, then, is it imperative for healthcare professionals to break into social media? Because the risks of not being involved far outweigh the risks of being part of it. Not understanding this space or refusing to engage with it is no longer a valid reason for ignoring it.

Patients or employees could be bashing your name, your institution, your methodology online already and you have no clue and no control over what’s being said! And as many of you may know, patients will listen to “someone like me” more than they’ll listen to their healthcare providers, celebrities or politicians. Thus, if a forum has been build where your brand name is being abused by people who did said they did business with you, others will believe them by default. You need to care about what is being said and where it’s being said.

How do you monitor for all these entries?

The first step is to utilize a social media monitoring tool. It will scan the internet for predetermined keywords you choose and it will return every mention of those keywords it can find online. We are talking about blogs, comments, Facebook posts, tweets, video comments, forums, news, press releases, mobile apps and more.

Next, you need to set up a Reputation Management Plan. Click here to read more on how it can help you save your reputation when an online crisis hits home. Hospitals, independent medical practices, small clinics, they all need to have one in order to avoid a PR disaster. Think about it as your contingency plan, a set of steps to follow when something goes wrong. You have a plan for viral contamination, think of social media risks as a potential virus that can easily cripple your organization. As part of your plan, you should know what social media sites are being used to talk about your company; do you have a presence on each? Are you actively participating and monitoring this conversation?

Once something is posted online it is there for all to see and even if the original post is deleted you can be sure that the sharing won’t stop. If the content goes “viral” you can be sure that managing the risks will be almost impossible as the damage can be done within minutes.

A good reputation management plan should be tailored to the organization and the right social media monitoring tools and expertise are essential to prevent any damage and protect your business as well as your patients.

Are you part of the HealthCare Industry? Do you have a social media strategy or are you planning on starting one? Have you considered the risks?

[1] Nicholson Kovac Inc, New Media Usage Study: Healthcare professionals, February 2010.

Whitney Houston’s daughter gets cybersquatted by porn star

Adriana Tayraco — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:59:00 GMT

The domain BobbiChristina.com was registered by a porn star executive on the day of her mother’s death. Talk about disrespect!

While the world was mourning the loss of one of music’s greatest figures of the 90s, more than 325 related domains were registered in less than 24hrs according to domain registrar GoDaddy. Most of the domains registered were looking to monetize on the death of the singer with examples such as: whitneyhoustondiedat48.com, whitneyhoustonheartattack.com, or whitney-houston-legacy.com.

It is not unusual for cybercriminals revamp activities every time a famous individual passes away; we saw malware increase after the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, after Michael Jackson’s untimely death, cybersquatting attempts after Steve Jobs passed away, and now history is repeating itself with Houston’s death. What’s different now; however, is that they are not only going after the singer, but they have targeted her 18 year old daughter as well.

Bobbi Kristina, the only daughter of the late Whitney Houston and ex-husband Bobby Brown, does not own the .com of her name. After doing a quick WHOIS search, the domain bobbikristina.com was registered by Kaylee Kase Studios LLC, an adult entertainment company founded by “Memphitz Creamer”. According to his Twitter handle, he is “22, Bi Racial, CEO, Porn Star, Socialite, Celebrity #rocker style”.

It seems like Mr. Creamer is a Whitney Houston fan, as his current Twitter background displays images of the late singer. This, nevertheless, did not stop him from registering Bobbi’s name on the same day her mother died.

He registered her barely legal, mourning daughter through his pornographic business. Let that sink for a minute.

Thankfully, Aftermarket.com – an online marketplace for buying and selling domain names – considered this an obvious case of cybersquatting and removed the listing yesterday.

This goes on to show that everybody can be targeted by cybersquatters; your company, your CEO, your board members, and if your company has a mascot it will be targeted too. Before you see yourself paying a cybersquatter for a domain that should belong to you, make sure you are monitoring your brand to make sure no one is taking advantage of it. Contact us for more information on brand abuse and brand protection.

Social Media Monitoring: It’s not only what someone says, it’s where they say it

Darren Enta — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:00:00 GMT

The tales of Social Media blunders by brands in 2011 are well documented. Three that come to mind are: 1) the Chrysler Twitter oops that was more the fault of the marketing company employee who thought it wise to insult the citizens of Detroit; 2) Charlie Sheen, who I realize is not really a brand, but the damage/attention that was the result of what outsiders viewed as a very public meltdown was an interesting examination of the social impact of Twitter; 3) and finally there was the poor choice of comedic timing displayed by Gilbert Gottfried when discussing the Tsunami in Japan, which happened to represent approximately 75% of Aflac’s (the former employer of former spokesman Gottfried) business.

For most of these, the impact was felt financially by companies that had to spend a lot of their PR budget addressing what was being put out by company representatives, spokespeople or in Sheen’s case, the complete rebranding and recasting of a television series. The one commonality is that Social Media matters and it needs to be monitored.

An older Social Media misstep has recently resurfaced. Dave Carroll, possibly better known as the ‘United Breaks Guitar’ guy is back in the news. Mr. Carroll parlayed a poor experience into a YouTube sensation after discovering that United Airlines had broken a guitar he checked. Over eleven million people viewed a video he titled simply “United Breaks Guitars”. Carroll has since been a sought after speaker addressing other companies on improving customer service experiences and how to avoid incidents such as this.

As of last week Carroll has a new “gig” as the spokesperson for the launch of a new site called Gripevine. Gripevine is a site which intends to provide customers the ability to discuss negative experiences and offers companies the opportunity to register in order to be notified when comments about their company or products is posted. The unique aspect in this case is the apparent intent of the site, as opposed to other known “gripe” sites such as complaintsboard.com or ripoffreport.com Gripevine is offering the ability for notification and direct and sometimes discreet engagement. The site is just coming out of its beta version and it’s unclear how much traffic or attention the site will generate. What is clear is the importance of understanding a much older lesson about media in general. Marshall McLuhan famously said: “The medium is the message”. This statement has never been truer, the weight and gravity of at least having the situational awareness of where the discussion about your company or products in the online community (or, more recently in the growing mobile community) is happening is a majority of the battle but will not win you the war.

Think of monitoring as the first line of defense you can set up. After threatening messages pass that defense, what will your company do about it? It is quickly becoming obvious to our customers that you need to have a Reputation Management Plan in place and knowing what was said and where it was said will greatly define what path your company should take to avoid any social media disasters like the ones mentioned at the beginning of this post.

So the question remains, are you aware of where people are talking about your brand? What are you going to do about it?

In Soviet Russia cybersquatters outsmart you! The TLD you should watch out for

Adriana Tayraco — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:00:00 GMT

For years now, cybercriminals had gotten comfortable and pretty much taken over the control of the .ru Top Level Domain (TLD). According to ZeuS tracker, the .ru TLD was the most common TLD associated to criminal activity online. Because nobody likes having their TLD associated with online scumbags, the Coordination Center for TLD RU finally decided to step in and cleaned their reputation by setting up new terms and conditions for anyone to register a .ru domain.

Their new terms and conditions will allow them to take down a site if there is sufficient evidence that it is being used for phishing attacks. After these new rules came to be in late 2011, the number of fraudulent .ru domains went down drastically. Not only that, the lifespan of those domains went down from months to up to 24 hours. At BrandProtect, we have been able to take down malicious URLs in the .ru TLD in as little as 4 minutes with our median takedown time being under 15 hours (some healthy bragging doesn’t hurt!).

But the fight against cybersquatting is a never-ending one and cybercriminals will always try to be one step ahead of the game. Since their domains are now getting shut down at incredible speeds, they have decided to set up camp somewhere else and that somewhere else seems to be red-flavoured. You may be surprised to know that the Soviet Union had set up a Top Level Domain and it is still active. It doesn’t take a genius to know that this created an excellent opportunity for online scum gatherings. Swiss security blog Abuse.ch reported that the number of malicious .su domains is seen a steady increase.

The Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN) administers the .su TLD and it had just over 100,000 domains registered on November 2011 when the .ru policies came into effect. As of January 2012, that number had grown to 101,003 domains.

So to recap: avoid shady links coming from .ru and .su TLDs and ask your network about an increase protection and blockage against those domains. You may also want to know that the most dangerous country code TLDs besides .ru and .su include .cm (Cameroon), .cn (China), .ph (Philippines).

Companies need to be on the constant look out as these rogue websites are popping out left and right. A proper domain name monitoring tool can give you a drastic advantage as it scans registrations to make sure they are not infringing on your company rights. With the imminent arrival of ICANN’s new brand-related TLDs, monitoring domain names should be part of your top 5 things to do this year.

You’ve been warned; do not let cybersquatters outsmart you!

Social Media and Sports: A Godsend or an Accident Waiting to Happen?

Adrian Sertl — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:25:00 GMT

For sports fans, the proliferation of athletes and their respective clubs (to say nothing of the sports media personalities) who are actively engaged in Social Media has been a revelation. Most, if not all, of the clubs in the top leagues around the world have official Facebook pages and Twitter accounts where fans can go and find out the latest news, engage in a discussion with other supporters, or, more so the case with Twitter, connect directly with the team’s stars themselves. Some clubs also have their own official YouTube channels which allow fans to watch match highlights or interviews or even get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the club that was previously restricted to journalists and team officials. The phrase ‘being one with your favourite team’ has never been so truthful.

Of course there are always Social Media pitfalls that these organizations really need to be keen to avoid if they want their supporters to have an overall positive experience. Unfortunately for my favourite soccer club FC Bayern Munich, last week they managed to (inadvertently) get themselves entangled in one of these pitfalls when they released a new app on Facebook, ‘The New FCB Star’, which was met with overwhelmingly negative feedback from the club’s supporters. Here, then, is a cautionary tale.

Last Thursday FC Bayern announced on their official Facebook Fan page that the club was going to be signing a new player and that fans could click on a link that would direct them to a live press conference containing all the details of who this new player was. To set a bit of context here, for weeks supporters of the club, much like most clubs’ supporters do in the designated transfer ‘windows’, had been discussing transfer rumours and debating the merits of player A or player B so this announcement of an imminent player signing was met with a ton of anticipation; all of this was in spite of the assertion by the club that there were going to be no players coming to or leaving the club this January.

Clicking on the link did indeed bring up a stream of an official looking press conference (featuring the Club’s Marketing and Sport directors as well as the team Captain) but much to viewers’ chagrin the signing wasn’t what they were expecting.

Essentially the club used the guise of a false press conference to let the supporters know that they were in fact the club’s new signing, the twelfth man as it is known in soccer circles, and that the new Facebook app was going to allow the supporters to become even more deeply immersed in the on goings of FC Bayern. While the club appeared to be acting with good intentions they completely misread the prevailing mentality that a good chunk of the fan base held; the thousands of negative comments on the Facebook page most definitely proved that point. Plain and simple the supporters felt swindled.

How is it that a club that appears to be fairly Social Media savvy could have misfired in such a big way with this publicity stunt? All it would have taken was for someone to take some time to read fan comments on either the Facebook page, Twitter, or any of the many fan forums to find out what the supporters were discussing (like transfer rumours) and perhaps they would have re-thought the whole thing altogether or at the very least communicated it differently. Realizing their error the club was very quick to post an apology on both the official website and the Facebook Fan page.

We here at BrandProtect have a long list of clients that use our Social Media Analysis and Research Tool (SMART) to help avoid the kind of incidents that FC Bayern had to deal with last week by making sure potential sparks do not become raging infernos. Our fully customizable search tool allows for clients to monitor a host of issues pertaining to their brand; we search a wide variety of social media outlets and report mentions back based not only on the general sentiment but on the authority that the particular site holds on the internet. This allows you to prioritize incidents based on how likely web users are likely to see it. Of course if a situation does happen to get out of control, we’ve got the knowledge and experience to assist you not only in containing the issue but coming up with an appropriate response that allows you to engage in rational dialogue with people as opposed to a more heavy handed approach.

We don’t want to see your online reputation tarnished.

What other risks can a brand face if they choose to ignore what their customers say? How important is monitoring to your brand?

Internet Giants Ready to Tackle Phishing

Adriana Tayraco — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:48:00 GMT

Mashable.com has recently reported that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL have put their differences aside and come together to create DMARC.org – the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance. It will provide consistent authentication results across their email services: Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and AOL.

What is interesting to note is that the Internet giants are all blaming the rise of phishing attacks on the growth of social media, among other factors. “With the rise of the social Internet and the ubiquity of e-commerce, spammers and phishers have a tremendous financial incentive to compromise user accounts, enabling theft of passwords, bank accounts, credit cards, and more,” reads an explanation on the group’s site. “Email is easy to spoof and criminals have found spoofing to be a proven way to exploit user trust of well-known brands. Simply inserting the logo of a well known brand into an email gives it instant legitimacy with many users.”

While social media has indeed increased and opened opportunities for cyber criminals to expand their attacks on unknown users, blaming social media is like blaming an entire university institution for a student’s failing marks; while it may be true that teachers can be incompetent, a student’s overall learning capability and willingness to learn are more likely to explain the problem. Internet users need to be educated of the many dangers and risks of social media. Companies also need to set up social media policies and training in order to avoid phishing attacks within the infrastructure.

Nevertheless, DMARC promises to be a great initiative and according to Incidence Response Manager at BrandProtect and phishing and identity theft expert Dylan Sachs, “Assuming email senders comply with the configuration requirements, DMARC should definitely help reduce both the number of email-based malware infections as well as the losses associated with phishing attacks. SPF and DKIM have been in place for some time, but the inconsistency amongst email providers with regards to handling failed authentications has really limited their efficacy. This is not a "silver bullet", however: implementation of DMARC will not completely eliminate email as a delivery method for phishing and malware, and therefore continued vigilance in the fields of anti-phishing/anti-malware and user education is required for all involved parties.” He also recommends you still avoid clicking on a bogus URL on an email; if you receive one from an institution you are doing business with, it is still a good idea to contact the institution or browse through their website to access the link.

For more information and to read the entire article on Mashable’s website, please click here.

What are your thoughts? Do you think DMARC will work or will phishing always find its way through to your inbox? Let us know!

Is an Online Loan Site Using Your Trademark?

Jamila Hunte — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:23:00 GMT

With the economy continuing to be in a vulnerable place and the unemployment rate still a concern for everyone, many people are worried about how they are going to make ends meet. Financial experts have warned us about the dangers of living beyond our means, but sometimes unexpected and unfortunate things happen like losing a job, car trouble which may require a new (and expensive) transmission or an unexpected illness or injury may have occurred. At the end of the day you are responsible for making sure funds are available to carry out your financial commitments. Sometimes, those of who find themselves in this predicament will turn to other means to supplement their income or to provide just enough money to get by.

So what if something terrible happens and you cannot pay your bills, what do you do?

Some folks in desperate situations may turn to a payday loan (also referred to as a quick loan or cash advance). These short-term, VERY high interest loans appear to be the quick solution to an acute problem, but many people have ended up owing a lot more than they planned for and regretfully discover that this may not be the best way to solve their financial problems. A person can obtain a payday loan by going in person to one of the many outlets out there to obtain their loan, but they can also obtain the loan online. There could be a lot of shame that one may feel if they go into one of these outlets. They may say to themselves, “What if someone I know sees me?” in fear that they are broadcasting their financial hardships to the world. Knowing that someone may look down on their situation might make obtaining a loan online more appealing. The person does not have to leave their house, no one has to know. The danger with this is that many of these sites are unregulated and who exactly is obtaining your information is unclear. You could be biting off a lot more than you can chew when you release your personal and financial information online.

At BrandProtect, we see this type of brand abuse all the time. We scour the internet for online threats that use our clients’ trademarks without authorization. Over the last few months, we have noticed online loan sites popping up that contain our clients’ trademark, which is especially concerning knowing that our clients are well-known financial institutions that do not have any affiliation and do not support these sites. These sites are providing loan application forms under the guise of the client’s trademarked name and asking for personal information like employment and banking information.

Here is an example of one of these forms (please note that for confidentiality reasons, “XYZ Bank” represents the financial institution’s name, in place of our client’s name):

This is not to say that the individual applying for the loan will not get the money they hope for, but this site is using a well-known and trusted trademark to encourage you to apply for a loan when the trademark owner does not have an affiliation with this online loan site. On top of having to pay back the loan in a very short amount of time at a very high interest rate, it cannot be known for certain who is actually obtaining your personal information and what might be done with that information once the application is submitted. For the end user, it might be wise to avoid using an online loan all together and to be especially wary of those that claim to be from a trusted bank or financial institution.

For brands, you do not want your customers being diverted from your website after they’ve identified your brand and think they are conducting business with you. You also don’t want them having a negative experience online, or to become identity theft victims because of brand abuse. Either way, once your brand is negatively associated in the minds of consumers you will have received irreparable damage to your reputation (even if you can prove your innocence). Prevention is key and being proactive is your best defense.

Are you monitoring the internet for brand abuse and trademark infringement?

6 guidelines to help you avoid the Microsoft Computer Fix Scam

Omri Benhaim — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Have you ever received a phone call from a person claiming to be from Microsoft? Well, Microsoft has now started to warn people that they may receive a call from scammers claiming to work for Security Departments of various well known organizations such as Microsoft.

These scammers will phone you claiming they work in the Microsoft Security Department and that they have been receiving error messages from your computer and would like to help you ‘fix’ the ‘problems’. They will also ask you to perform various tasks such as downloading malware disguised as virus scanners, giving them access remotely to your computer or even to go as far as asking for credit card information.

To date, the fraudsters have only been targeting English speaking countries. Luckily, the majority of people contacted by them do not fall for the scam. Those who do fall victim will most likely have to deal with compromised passwords, identity theft and a financial loss. The average financial loss ranges from country to country. In Canada the average loss was $1,560.00, while in the United States the financial damage caused by infected computers averages $4,800.00 to repair or replace the PC.

These guidelines will help you avoid becoming a victim of these scams.

Always be cautious when receiving unsolicited calls even if they claim to be from a legitimate company.
Never provide personal information, such as credit card or banking details to an unsolicited caller.
Never download any software provided to you by an unsolicited caller.
Never give anyone remote access to your computer unless you can confirm without a doubt that they are who they say they are.
Always use a strong, unique password and change it regularly.
Always ask to be provided with additional information, whether the company can mail you various pamphlets or be directed to more information through their website. Real companies will never shy away from proving their legitimacy through various means in addition to the phone call.

Have you received these calls at home? At work? Have you let your employees know about this scam?

After the Blackout: PIPA and SOPA CO-Sponsors abort mission

Adriana Tayraco — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:35:00 GMT

**UPDATE: Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor for SOPA has released a statement on Friday January 20th indicating he is pulling the bill "until there is wider agreement on a solution". This decision comes after a heated couple of weeks where supporters and protesters had heated arguments and culminating on yesterday's blackout and several congressmen dropping their support for both PIPA and SOPA.

“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a statement Friday morning.

===========================

The aftermath of the blackout is intense. If someone hadn’t heard of SOPA/PIPA before they sure know a lot about it now. The mainstream media and the average Joe have finally taken notice of intensity of the war between the entertainment industry and the Internet over SOPA. Every television network and newspaper has had to at least mention the initiative taken by Reddit and Wikipedia on January 18^th.

I had a conversation with my neighbor this morning and he was telling me how he tried to access Wikipedia yesterday and was met with an anti-SOPA take action screen. He was clueless as to what SOPA was and what it was intending to do to the World Wide Web. Being a curious guy, he spent more time than he had planned reading and informing himself on SOPA through the Wikipedia page. His outrage was sincere and he is not alone. After more than 10,000 websites decided to shut down for 24hrs, Internet users around the world have had a wakeup call and have experienced what the consequences of SOPA would be.

But is it working?

At first glance, it seems to. Supporters for both PIPA and SOPA have been thinking it twice and some are already publicly opposing the bills claiming they now realize the full extent of the damage they can cause. PIPA co-sponsor and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has officially switched bands and pulled his name from the bill on Wednesday. SOPA co-sponsor and Arizona Rep. Ben Quayle did so on Tuesday. Sen. Rubio issued a statement via Facebook post:

“As a senator from Florida, a state with a large presence of artists, creators and businesses connected to the creation of intellectual property, I have a strong interest in stopping online piracy that costs Florida jobs.

“However, we must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies.”

In addition, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch have also mentioned their plans to stop supporting SOPA. PIPA supporters are backing out with 18 senators previously in favor of PIPA now opposing it.

The aftermath

While it is unclear if the momentum that culminated on yesterday’s blackout had a significant influence on the number of detractors, it has been reported that various servers were slowed down and some crashed due to the high volume of SOPA complaints. Many of the large Internet companies have encouraged users like my neighbor to sign petitions and ask congress to stop SOPA. Websites belonging to various SOPA supporting senators were down yesterday and while this may send a louder message than any email or letter they receive, the final decision on the passing of the bill is still to be seen.

Where you affected?

Which pages did you try to access yesterday only to find out there were blocked? Are you pro or against SOPA? Let us know!

SOPA Blackout in full force! Learn what sites have closed shop for the day

Adriana Tayraco — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:46:00 GMT

Need to research something on Wikipedia? Tried Reddit? You have probably found out by now that those sites and as many as 7,000 others are on “virtual strike” today January 18^th to protest against SOPA. Need a refresher course on what SOPA is? Click here for a small summary.

Ever since Reddit proposed a Blackout of their website and services for a full 24 hours to oppose SOPA, many more companies have joined in and closed down shop to show users what the Internet would look like if SOPA gets approved. The biggest and most outspoken protester to go dark today is indubitably Wikipedia; their English site went dark today at midnight E.T. and will stay that way for 24 hours.

Besides Wikipedia and Reddit, the following sites are also on strike today:

Google:

they blackened out their logo and have released a Take Action campaign to End Piracy, Not Libery.

Wordpress:

Besides participating in the Blackout, they are also hosting third party SOPA plug-ins and encouraging their users to install them to show their discontent with the bill.

Mozilla:

their default home page has a blacked-out logo and displays information on SOPA as well as a call to action to stop it. You can still download Firefox via a link at the bottom.

Michael Moore:

His site has gone dark as well with a very creative spotlight that you can move around with your mouse to read his call to action. The outspoken journalist is asking you to contact your Senator and Representative today.

Icanhascheezburger network sites (including FailBlog, the Daily What, Know Your Meme, etc):

The popular networking site and all of their brand-sites will show a dark screen and a pop-up with a call to action to either SOPA or PIPA.

Craigslist:

Visitors are being greeted with a “Stop PIPA and SOPA” splash page. You can skip this and access the full site.

The Oatmeal:

Perhaps the most creative way to express anti-SOPA feelings, they have made a .gif animation that breaks the issue down in a humorous yet surprisingly serious manner.

For a complete list of the confirmed participants, go to www.sopastrike.com

Shocking Social Media Disasters: what went wrong?

Adriana Tayraco — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:00:00 GMT

Mashable released their list of their top 15 most shocking social media disasters and we couldn’t help but wonder, what went wrong? How could they not see this coming? Almost all of these individuals suffered major damage to their reputation and as we all at BrandProtect know, once lost it is very hard to get it back.

Join us while we go over our favorite social media disasters and add our own little commentary. The examples go from “ok, that was an honest mistake” all the way to “what in the world was he/she thinking?!”

GoDaddy CEO videos himself shooting an Elephant:

The last quarter of 2011 was not nice to GoDaddy. The domain registrar and hosting company saw a large number of detractors and a social media storm heading their way after their now former CEO Bob Parsons posted a video of him killing and butchering an elephant in Africa. While his motivations may have been altruistic (he claims he was helping the village provide valuable food resources to the locals) his response left much to ask from the self-made millionaire: "I kind of figured that this might happen. So be it, I'm not ashamed of what I did". Things didn’t get better when the company decided to publicly support the SOPA bill. Their new CEO has now announced that they officially oppose SOPA.

What went wrong? It is not the first time a public person’s private videos or pictures make headlines. Most of the times the trending stops after he/she makes an apologetic statement. His already tainted public image; however, makes this a difficult save. Bob did nothing to put out the fire; in fact, he added fuel with his in-your-face defensive mechanism.

Chrysler’s F-bomb slips out on Twitter:

A classic mistake; a personal tweet went out on the main account. An New Media Strategies agency staffer working on the @ChryslerAutos twitter handle mistakenly tweeted “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive”. The social media world exploded, hundreds of retweets and screengrabs started circulating the net and the hashtag #motorcity became a trending topic. Chrysler was quickly to remove the offending tweet and apologize claiming their account had been “compromised”. They ended their contract with NMS and posted an apologetic blog post.

What went wrong? Not much went wrong here. While Chrysler was prompt to delete and reply to the tweet, they missed out a tremendous chance to turn this social media disaster into an opportunity for brand loyalty. If you want to see how it’s done, you can read about the American Red Cross example; they managed to turn a rogue tweet into a blood donating campaign.

Netflix’s @Qwikster weed-smoking Elmo:

When Netflix decided to create their now defunct DVD service; they chose the very catchy name Qwikster without realizing that the Twitter handle already belonged to Jason Castillo who’s Elmo avatar mainly tweeted about weed and foul language. Cue in sarcastically funny mentions and memes.

What went wrong? Netflix forgot to do the very basic: to do an online search on the possible brand name and even better to use a social media monitoring tool and analyze the sentiment results.

Gilbert Gottfried’s Japan Jokes:

We all remember the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Japanese islands on March of 2011. While the entire world saw shocking images of the destruction that followed, Mr. Gottfried was tweeting several tasteless jokes such as “I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, ‘There’ll be another one floating by any minute now’”. His insensitive sense of humor cost him his Aflac spokesperson position.

What went wrong? Gilbert Gottfried is known for his volatile and disrespectful comedy style (who remembers his 9/11 jokes just three weeks after the attack?). Aflac responded skillfully by releasing a statement where they publicly fired Gottfried and showed their solidarity to the Japanese by donating more than $1.2 million to the International Red Cross.

BlackBerry Blackout and social media silence:

Chances are you were one of the affected BlackBerry customers who experienced a days-long blackout where emails, bbm and other notifications were affected. Problems were made worse when BlackBerry representatives failed to provide an official statement or explanation and remained silent even after furious customers (and celebrities!) took to social media networks to express their frustration.

What went wrong? This has become 2011’s prime example of how NOT to respond to a social media crisis. We even wrote about it back in October and recommended BlackBerry to rewrite their Reputation Management Plan.

For the complete list of Mashable’s 2011 Social Media Disasters, click here.

Comments! Which one’s your favourite? Do you think we missed one? Let us know

Anonymous Comes Out Against SOPA

Adriana Tayraco — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:22:00 GMT

The latest party to publicly show their discontent with the Stop Online Piracy Act is the hacker group Anonymous. Late Wednesday night the hacker group announced they would go silent on January 18^th as a sign of solidarity with those groups already protesting against SOPA and Protect IP Act. Anonymous joins Reddit and possibly Wikipedia on the list of online entities that are going quiet on January 18^th to protest against SOPA – Google and Facebook have been rumored to join as well.

It is not the first time Anonymous intervenes in SOPA business. There have been reports of Anonymous threatening both Nintendo and Sony after they decided to support SOPA. The hacker group posted messages indicating that alliance to SOPA was a death warrant to SONY; “therefore, yet again, we have decided to destroy your network. We will dismantle your phantom from the Internet. Prepare to be extinguished. Justice will be swift, and it will be for the people, whether some like it or not. Sony, you have been warned" they said. Both Sony and Nintendo quietly withdrew their support; however, it is unclear if they decisions where solely influenced by Anonymous.

Why January 18th?

The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing to consider SOPA’s impact on the web on that same day. Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform said that this meeting will “examine the potential impact of Domain Name Service (DNS) and search engine blocking on American cyber-security, jobs and the Internet community. In light of policy proposals affecting the way taxpayers access the Internet, the hearing will also explore federal government strategies to protect American intellectual property without adversely affecting economic growth. The Committee will hear testimony from top cyber-security experts and technology job creators.”

If passed, the Stop Online Piracty Act and the Protect IP Act will shake the internet at its core, forcing companies and users alike to monitor the information being shared and if either is found guilty of disseminating copyrighted material there will be severe penalties which include hefty fines and even jail time.

You can monitor the social media reaction to Anonymous’s blackout by following the hashtag #SOPAblackout and #J18.

DON’T follow these steps to deactivate your Facebook Timeline

Adriana Tayraco — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:06:00 GMT

A new generation of Facebook Scams has emerged just in time for the launch of Timeline – Facebook’s new profile layout. And while these changes have more than one user celebrating Facebook’s evolution, there are a large number of defectors who are begging Facebook to let them revert back to their old profiles.

Mashable recently reported an increase in Facebook scams targeting these users offering them to turn off Timeline. In exchange, users are asked to turn in personal info, download nasty files, or spam friends and family with bogus links. Some of those applications and pages are even going as far as using Mark Zuckerberg’s image to attract their prey.

If your employees access Facebook during work hours or even lunch time, you should be enforcing a social media policy to protect your systems from falling prey to malware and spam. Now, this does not mean you should block you company’s access to Social Media sites (it’s got negative consequences anyway), instead, proper education and monitoring are key to protect your company from online risks coming from outside and inside the organization.

Watch this video from Mashable to learn more about the rogue Facebook apps:

Where do you stand?

Do you love or hate Facebook’s new timeline? Have you seen or clicked any of these links?

You won’t find porn on Vatican.xxx

Adriana Tayraco — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Just in time for Christmas, a nasty rumour started spreading indicating that the site vatican.xxx had been purchased by someone not belonging to the religious organization. A spokesperson commented on Vatican radio that they had tried to purchase the domain but that someone had beat them to it. Chaos ensued as the press had a field day speculating on what the content of the new site would be.

As it turned out, Vatican.xxx was not purchased by a naughty cybersquatter but, on the contrary, it had already been permanently reserved by the ICM and no one is able to purchase it. "Vatican.xxx is a name that is on the permanent reserve list, so it was pulled out of the registry before the launch," said Jocelyn Johnson, a representative for ICM Registry. It is probable that someone did not realize that there was a list of names that had been blocked from the beginning and they assumed someone else had already gotten a hold of the domain.

While they may have dodged one bullet, no one’s to say that there isn’t another Vatican-related adult site in the works right now. There are infinite possibilities when it comes to creating domain names. Tom Reese, a Jesuit at Georgetown University stated; "Vatican girls.xxx, Vatican sluts.xxx, it's almost infinite - to say nothing of all the obscene words you can put together and all the words not only after but before Vatican. It's just an impossible task to defend yourself from this kind of stuff".

It goes on to show that no one – not even religious institutions or figures – are safe from possible cybersquatting or domain name hijacking. We sure hope that the Vatican embraces social media monitoring now that they are expanding on Facebook, Youtube, Flickr and even the Pope himself is tweeting.

To find out more about ICANN’s new .XXX initiative, click here for more blog posts and follow us at @BDBrandprotect for up to date news and information.

5 Malware attacks that defined 2011 and why your Smartphone is next

Minal Pithia — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:00:00 GMT

By Dylan Sachs and Minal Pithia

With the recent news of even more malware on the Android Market (and the subsequent Microsoft offer of a free Windows Phone for some of those affected), people are getting more and more concerned that their devices, personal information - or worse, their bank balance - are going to be targeted.

This news isn't really new - mobile malware has been a problem for years now, and as the smartphone market continues to grow, it will remain an issue for years to come. At the conferences we have attended this year - FIRST, APWG, and DCC - we have heard several talks from researchers about how mobile devices are being used to steal people's money. Some are straightforward - like the aforementioned Android Market malware which sent SMS messages to premium numbers, jacking up the user's cell phone bill - and some are decidedly not straightforward, involving Man-In-The-Middle attacks, desktop malware, SIM card cloning, and other novel approaches.

The malware industry as a whole (not just mobile) has been booming this year - over the course of the last 12 months, we have seen:

Malware spam
Malicious ads and search results –Most recent one seen in November – Users infected computers displayed an ad for a vacation timeshare on top of the ESPN homepage (New York Times11/09/11)
Spear Phish that spread malware and steal credentials – Recently, Symantec reported finding a new wave of malware attacks against private companies involved in research, development, and manufacture of chemicals and advanced materials The attacks, combine social engineering lures (spear phishing e-mails) and the remote access Trojan to infect targeted Windows computers and hijack sensitive information.
Social Engineering and Hactivism – Groups like Anonymous and LulzSec used social and political tactics to rock companies and government organizations by releasing sensitive information to the public
Mobile Malware – According to a report my McAfee, Android surpassed Symbian as the most popular target of mobile malware. With all mobile malware effort focused on Android, it has also seen a significant rise in detected malware samples—about a 50 percent increase over Q2.

The adoption rates of mobile devices (smartphones, specifically) continue to climb for every geographic region, and for good reason; they change the way we communicate, conduct business, and go about our daily lives. Smartphones and tablets are essentially pocket-sized computers, and it's that portability that makes them more appealing. “ eMarketer estimates almost 100 million consumers will be on the mobile web this year. The US mobile web population will be up almost 25% this year as 97.3 million mobile owners log on to the internet from their device at least monthly”. Yes, you read that right: 97.3 million mobile internet users, in the US alone. Japan has had more mobile internet users than wired internet users since 2006. Someone even took the time to estimate that there will be 957 million mobile internet subscribers in China by 2014. That is more than the population of North and South America combined.

As you can imagine, this is an attractive number for malware authors; they know that the nascent technology is used by people who have not developed safe use habits, and exploit this to get their malware on mobile devices (the vast majority of mobile malware requires installation by the user).

In July of this year researchers reported a new version of ‘Zeus, also known as “Zitmo” that ran on Android phones. According to Trusteer, the mobile malware combines PC based Zeus infections with a mobile component. A user whose PC is infected tries to login to their banking site, this triggers the Zeus virus which asks the user to download an authentication code on to their mobile device to complete their login process. This gives the perpetrators full control over both the user’s PC and mobile device, allowing the malware to generate a fraudulent transaction on behalf of the user and authenticating it by obstructing the SMS verification message on the phone and forwarding it to the malware on their PC. As a result, after sophistically deleting the confirmation message from the mobile device so the user doesn’t see it, it then enters the code on the PC to complete the transaction. One could see how mobile devices have become an exploding platform and growing at a fast rate; many people are predicting that mobile malware will be a big problem (warning: PDF) in the year to come.

Your thoughts: Are you an Android user affected by malware? Are you concerned about privacy issues on smartphones? Let us know

And the race is on! Naughty URLs now available to the public

Adriana Tayraco — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:55:00 GMT

Accredited registrars can now purchase .XXX domains on a first-come, first-serve basis. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers and ICM Registry have finally released their latest attempt at supervising access to porn sites. The new .XXX domains are meant to filter access to adult content and give Internet users a heads-up of the site’s contents.

We have been covering the release of the .XXX domains and the new gTLDs since they were first announced back in July. We also discussed the long list of pros and cons that companies both outside and inside the adult industry are facing with the .xxx registration; financial and legal barriers of entry, an unnecessary burden for businesses wishing to protect their trademarks, cybersquatting risks, and the list goes on. “It is my opinion that .XXX domain is an anticompetitive business practice that works a disservice to all companies that do business on the Internet” said Fabian Thylmann, managing partner of Manwin, which licenses most of Playboy sites. Manwin has gone as far as filing an antitrust suit against ICANN and the ICM.

Companies and institutions have already snatched their trademarked .XXX domains; American Universities have already protected their brands by registering for the adult-oriented domain extension, so have Peta and many others.

A convenient portal, www.buy.xxx, lists all the registrars and it also includes a domain lookup tool. In addition, McAfee is scanning each .XXX registered site daily for malware and other attacks and a MetaCert electronic Family Safety label will let users, organizations, and parents know of the adult content and be able to adjust their browser settings and parental controls. Over 250 million pages have already been labeled using MetaCert according to the ICM Registry website.

"While adult entertainment is enjoyable to many adults, it is not appropriate for all audiences,” said Stuart Lawley, chief executive of ICM Registry. “We created .XXX to address the unique needs of the online adult entertainment industry.”

Comments? Have you registered and or blocked your website? Are you planning on doing so? Let us know.

Mobile Apps security risks revealed! Why monitoring is still key

Adriana Tayraco — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:00:00 GMT

The alarm on your phone rings, you wake up and reach for it and after turning it off (or snoozing a couple of times if you’re like me) what do you do? According to a survey conducted by Ericsson, 35% of smartphone users launch a mobile app before even getting out of bed. The survey also found out that consumers today depend less on the devices they use and more on the apps they run on them. The “app culture”, as it is being called, is dictating a new way of living and it is spreading onto tablet users and other smart devices. An average smartphone user has 22 installed apps; by 2012 it is expected that 50 billion apps will be downloaded each year and demand for mobile apps is expected to peak in 2013. Consumers are depending on apps to find a place to eat, socialize, share information, buy and sell, and even pay bills. What the “app culture” hasn’t realized is that by taking their lives into the cloud they are exposing their most sensitive information to hacks. Mobile apps have been known to purposely or accidentally harvest user data - that’s email, pictures, location, and passwords - using malware pre-installed on the app.

Mobile Apps risks and your company

Most of these fraudulent apps associate themselves with a company name or logo without prior authorization. They rely on the well-established and popular brand name in order to entice users to download and install malware onto their phones. If (and when) this happens to your brand, you will lose trustworthiness the moment consumers see any association between your company and a fraudulent application, even if you can prove your innocence. Companies have lost millions on dropped sales and revenue because they did not react to an online threat on time.

Mobile App Monitoring

As technology advances, it brings new and unexplored opportunities for companies to either secure or damage their reputation. Mobile application monitoring is a relatively new security feature and one that companies are finding it increasingly necessary to have, which is why BrandProtect has released its Mobile App Monitoring tool capable of performing regular searches of the Apple App Store, BlackBerry App World, and the Android Market and look for any reference to the target organization. The search features are not constrained to local results; if the client’s primary market is Brazil then the Brazilian versions of the app stores will be searched as well. BrandProtect’s Mobile App Monitoring service is an add-on to any of our primary services: Brand Abuse, Identity Theft Attack Management, or Social Media Monitoring.

For more information on any of our services or if you would like to sign up for Mobile App Monitoring, please contact BrandProtect at sales@brandprotect.com

How SOPA could “break” the Internet – What to expect when and if the bill passes

Adriana Tayraco — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:20:00 GMT

This past week has seen a lot of chatter both online and offline about the passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) also called the E-Parasite Act or the Worst Piece of Internet Legislation ever. For those of you who are not familiar with SOPA, the passing of this bill has been said to destroy the internet as we know it today. If passed, SOPA would allow the U.S. Department of Justice as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites suspected of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. So, as an example, sharing and/or streaming a video containing copyrighted background music, film clips, clips from last night’s game, or even posting a video of your kid singing a cover song could now be considered a felony with a potential 5 years sentence if guilty. Websites who facilitate the sharing of copyrighted content (basically every single social networking site out there today) could be blocked or taken down. Once a court order has been issued, the U.S. Attorney-General could then ban ISPs from displaying links to the blocked sites.

The ramifications of the passing of the SOPA bill are speculated to be catastrophic for normal internet use and to become the end of e-commerce. A website operator could face blocked US web traffic, blocked ad-revenue, and blocked search traffic. Due to a riskier legal climate, venture capitalists stopping funding, and the blockage of open-source software projects, fewer startup companies will be launched and that translates into a loss of jobs and GDP decline. David Sohn, senior policy counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology stated “it would force pervasive scrutiny and surveillance of Internet users' online activities. It would chill the growth of social media and conscript every online platform into a new role as content police.”

Who’s against it

As it is to be expected, social media giants have already expressed their discontent and companies like Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and others presented an open letter to congressional sponsors of the bill. More companies have also protested the ‘censorship’ by tweaking the design of their main pages and encouraged users to speak out against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The Library Copyright Alliance and the American Library Association are also against the passing of this bill as they rely on Creative Commons Licenses and ‘a series of established, community-led open collaboration processes to ensure that its information and media are a part of free culture’.

Who’s supporting it

Organizations and industries that rely on copyright protection have immediately enlisted themselves in support of SOPA, these include the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians and Screen Actors Guild, Comcast, NBC Universal, Viacom, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as various unions in the cable, movie, and music industries. There have also been retractors; the Business Software Alliance initially backed up the SOPA bill but has recently withdrawn its support, with their CEO Robert Holleyman citing that “Valid and important questions have been raised about the bill. It is intended to get at the worst of the worst offenders. As it now stands, however, it could sweep in more than just truly egregious actors”.

Defenders of the bill; however, are saying that without a bill like SOPA, copyright will cease to exist. This is their opportunity to stop online piracy and counterfeiting once and for all. They are trying to combat the unregulated theft of U.S. copyrighted content by shady foreign sites and they insist that the law will mainly fight offshore sites; however, some U.S. based sites may be targeted as well.

Criticism

An analysis by MapLight.org decided to follow the money and uncovered that supporters of SOPA have given 4.5 times as much money to members of Congress than those opposing the bill.

Companies opposing the bill have declared that SOPA will tamper with the DNS (Domain Name System) as a means to limit access to online content who they think infringes on copyright – you would only be able to access the site through its ISP. It will have a negative impact on the Internet Security Protocol (DNSSEC), diminishing its standing and significance. Adam Thierer, senior research at the Mercatus Center complained that "The techno-ignorance of Congress was on full display. Member after member admitted that they really didn't have any idea what impact SOPA's regulatory provisions would have on the DNS, online security, or much of anything else".

The bill has also come under fire as being the result of powerful lobbyists (mostly Hollywood and the music industry) peer-pressuring Congress into stopping online piracy so they can retain earnings lost since the beginning of internet sharing.

What’s it to you?

The SOPA bill was first introduced on October 25, 2011 and it has seen a primary hearing in the House Judiciary Committee on Nov 16^th. If history is of any reference, the bill has a high likelihood of passage as it is backed by influential and resourceful corporate interests.

Are you currently exercising a Social Media campaign? Are you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn? Are your employees sharing content through these sites? Either way you will be liable if any copyrighted material gets disseminated right under your nose. Current Social Media policies will need to be reviewed and strictly reinforced. You entire infrastructure will have to be adapted for a completely different way of doing business online, as you will be exposed to new and uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require a more detailed and invasive monitoring of websites.

Several valid concerns have been raised by both supporters and opposition. These concerns will have to be discussed in depth before the bill moves on to the next stage.

How will this bill affect your business?Are you for or against it? Let us know in the comment box below

INTA 2011 Leadership Meeting in Miami: Brand Creation, Enforcement Strategies and Beyond

Jamila Hunte — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:59:00 GMT

The International Trademark Association (INTA) 2011 Leadership Meeting was held this year in Miami Beach, Florida from November 8^th– November 12^th. As you may have guessed, I dreaded leaving the cool 10°C Ontario weather for the warm and sunny climate that would meet me when I arrived in Miami. I wanted no part of it, but as a team player I knew I had to take it for the team. Of course I am completely joking and instead of feeling hesitant to go, it was the complete opposite. I have been an active member of INTA since 2006 have been very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to attend and represent BrandProtect at various INTA Annual Meetings in different parts of the world over the years. I am currently involved with the Online Reference Committee (going on my second term) and have also been a member of the Internet Committee in the years prior to that. This was my first Leadership Meeting and I was excited to see what it had to offer.

The INTA Leadership meeting provides more than 1000 volunteers the opportunity to meet and network with INTA leaders, attend educational sessions revolving around the latest developments in trademark law and participate in committee meetings.

Since INTA is international in scope, the Leadership Meeting provides committee members a chance to meet face to face with other team members that for the majority of the term are only able communicate via conference call due to the different countries they reside in. I know that this aspect helps me to feel more connected to my team members and really makes for a great working environment once we get together. This particular Leadership Meeting gave us a chance to come together as some of our colleagues were moving on to different committee assignments for the next term.

As I mentioned before, the Leadership Meeting provides attendees with the opportunity to attend education sessions at the advanced level. Over the course of the week, two sessions stood out for me as they were in line with the topics and issues that I deal with on a daily basis. My clients consist primarily of brand owners who have concerns about their online reputation and the potential abuses that may come with having a well-known brand. With social media monitoring being one of the key services we offer to our clients at BrandProtect, I found the session entitled “Social Media and the Protégé” to be particularly interesting. The panel conducted their presentation in the form of a reality show where each contestant attempts to win the head job on the social media team of a fictitious company by showing their depth of knowledge in the world of social media. They took a creative approach to outline the steps that a company can take to protect their company’s interest by determining and handling the risks that come from the use of social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter and the widespread use of user generated content. There are legal implications with the use of social media for brand owners, which include maintaining transparency with the user by providing them with clear and established privacy and user content policies and procedures. The session also brought to light the importance of establishing a social media team within the organization that are experienced and well equipped to manage issues as they arise.

The second session that was of particular interest to me was conducted in the form of JEOPARDY! Through the game the contestants answered questions revolving around techniques for enforcing trademarks on the internet. I came to learn some interesting statistics; for example, they are predicting that by the year 2012 it is estimated that 50 million (yes million) mobile applications will be downloaded. They also used examples from developments in recent legal cases and outlined new ISP policies which all helped to demonstrate the most up-to-date techniques for enforcing trademarks on the internet. It was also interesting to hear from these industry experts that brand owners must think and plan very carefully before pursuing a case with an alleged offender. With the proliferation of social media, brand owners must be aware that anything they say or any approach that is taken can go viral and an issue that may seem small could turn into a PR nightmare if not handled with care.

As you can see a lot was accomplished in Miami besides finding the best spot on the beach (of course I would not dream of doing that) and looking for the best restaurant to eat at. The things learned and the people that I interacted with over the week have provided me with a lot of takeaways that are of value to the work that we do for our valued clients that have partnered with us to help manage and mitigate online threats on their behalf.

Companies blocking access to Social Media sites are Hackers’ primary targets

Adriana Tayraco — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:41:00 GMT

Banning employees from Facebook, Twitter and other sites shows a 30% increase in computer security breaches

TELUS and the Rotman School of Management have published their third annual IT security study. This time, the study revealed an increase in the number of security breaches in both government entities and companies in the private sector; with government entities experiencing twice the number of attacks – almost a 74% increase. Most of these attacks are aimed at obtaining sensitive citizen data for identity theft purposes.

From 2009 to 2010, companies experienced a 29% increase in security breaches. The report states that “incidents for publicly traded organizations continue to rise, reporting six times the number of breaches experienced in 2008”. The report shows that the average cost of a breach was $195,588 for a publicly traded company, $70,833 for a Private company and $58,929 for a government entity.

The most shocking find; however, seems to be the that companies that are currently blocking access to social networking sites (1 in 4) are the ones seeing the most increase in computer security breaches; perhaps because employees themselves are trying to circumvent the block. Dr. Walid Hejazi, Professor of Business Economics at the Rotman School of Management stated “We see a need to maintain control in an ever-changing threat environment, where attacks are designed to penetrate security using the latest technologies and processes; however, our research indicates that the adoption of social networking in the workplace is simply not a contributing factor to breach increases. The best course of action is to instill a sense of trust and educate employees on how to engage in social networking appropriately."

It is really not all that unexpected, considering the amount of time most of us spend online and according to Dr. Hejazi, most employees will always find a way (usually through using a third party software) to circumvent firewalls which will allow them to update their Facebook status but will also create an open door for hackers to come in and play. The solution, Dr. Hejazi says, “isn’t to block all access, but to bring in awareness training with it so people fully understand what they are doing (by installing firewall-breaching software).”

Companies are still learning the hard way that social media will have an impact on their business and their overall productivity. The TELUS-Rotman study has brought to light the complexity of the role of IT security in organizations who try to block or control their employees’ online behavior. Employees need to be taught proper online etiquette and a Social Media Policy should be put in place. Along with these measures, a company should be aware of the importance of monitoring their online reputation. As social media continues to expand and employees continue to express themselves through its various channels, enlisting the services of a social media monitoring tool will let management sleep at night not having to worry about that rogue employee trashing your newest product campaign because he did not get the raise he wanted.

By educating your own staff you’ll find that they can be your eyes and ears and ‘patrol’ the internet for mentions of your brand and help you protect your online reputation. It’s like they say; if you can’t beat them – join them.

How is your company controlling its employees social media usage? Do you block only certain sites? Do you have a social media policy in place? Let us know in the comment box below!

Locked out of Facebook? New Facebook security feature “Trusted Friends” could let you back in

Adriana Tayraco — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:15:00 GMT

By now many of you have read about security site Sophos recently released post on Facebook’s report on compromised accounts. According to the released infographic, 0.06% of the 1 billion logins per day are compromised. It does not sound like a threatening number until you realize we are still talking about roughly 600,000 accounts a day. Facebook’s report also indicated that less than 4% of shared content on Facebook is spam and less than 5% of Facebook users actually experience spam on any given day.

Alongside this eye-opening report, Facebook has introduced their newest feature – called Trusted Friends – that aims to make your life easier if you do fall in that 0.06% of compromised accounts. This new feature, to be tested in the coming weeks, would allow you to select up to 5 friends who would be given codes that could help you if you ever get locked out of your account.

Sophos’ article brings up an interesting point – you really need to select these friends carefully. After all, you are giving them the keys to fully access your most sensitive (and probably embarrassing) information. You better tell them practical jokes will not be tolerated!

The problem Facebook has at hand – regardless of how many security features it’ll be able to implement – is that users are still not educated about proper security settings and https formats. Also, their report talks about spam only; however, malicious apps being installed and shared can also achieve the same evil results. It is, then, vital to control the amount of information you share on social networks and constantly monitor mentions about you (and your brand) using social media monitoring tools.

And so, while Trusted Friends may be the temporary answer to their recent security breaches, we can expect further developments to be released as Facebook fights new and improved cybercriminal attacks. After all, the market for stolen information has seen a boost in recent years with social media giving them easy access to countless amounts of personal data.

Will you be utilizing this new security feature? Have you or any of your friends seen their account compromised by spam messages? Let us know in the comment box below.

Seasonal scams will put a damper on XMAS for some job seekers

Rosemary Brkopac — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Over the past few weeks we have seen a spike in the posting of fake online employment listings. The positions claimed to be available have run the gamut, from administrative assistant, to stocker, to docker, and many more. The locations spanned across the U.S.A., from the Space Coast to San Francisco to Seattle, and on to Salem.

One recent scam worked as follows: A number of fake job postings were made on a very popular website featuring free online classified advertisements. The “hiring company” name was not identified in the ads. When an applicant applied for a position they received a response from a spoofed email address which looked like it came from a major employer. The communication indicated the applicant has been hired on the spot, without an interview. The justification made was “we are staffing very aggressively, and are prepared to make you a firm employment offer. Typically we conduct multiple in-person interviews with each candidate. However, due to increased staffing needs, we have greatly expedited the hiring process.” I hope if you received such a response your suspicions would be aroused immediately!

The scam artist went on, boldly saying “One of the main ways we have expedited our hiring process is by streamlining the payroll into a fast, easy, electronic system, versus the old-fashioned paper check method. The way it works is that you will be assigned your choice of a Visa or MasterCard, completely free of charge and without credit check, into which we will deposit your weekly earnings. Not only does this method result in employees getting paid faster, it also functions as a form of citizenship verification; as stated in the ad you must be qualified to work in the US for any employer. Please note that even if you already have a bank account, Visa, or MasterCard, we will still need you to complete your payroll profile using the link below, which is assigned to you. If you simply prefer paper checks, ask your manager and he or she will accommodate you. Regardless, it is a requirement for all employees to register for the online payroll program for citizenship verification purposes.” Wow, at this point I hope you would be hitting the delete button!

Needless to say, the company who was supposed to be doing all this hiring was not behind the job postings. Anyone who did provide highly sensitive information to the scam artist would become the victim of fraud. Our client, who can be considered a victim of the scam as well, received a number of inquiries from applicants who wanted to verify the employment of the “Senior Staffing Coordinator” who contacted them with the job offer. Of course, BrandProtect stepped in and put a kibosh on this fraud.

Employment scams are perpetrated every day. Right now we are working on a scam where applicants are receiving a “background check request form” asking that personal information such as Social Security number and birth date be provided. Know that our clients, and other reputable employers, will never ask you to provide sensitive personal information over the internet. Lots of people are desperate for employment, and the unscrupulous are ready to exploit their vulnerability. As the holidays approach you can be sure that many more of these scams will crop up, so if you are looking for employment please be vigilant.

Last Chance to secure/block .XXX domain names! Sunrise periods end today

Adriana Tayraco — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:24:00 GMT

The countdown is on. The Sunrise periods are reaching the end and companies that do not want to face possible cybersquatting have until the end of today to block their .XXX gTLDs.

*UPDATE* ICM Registry has updated Sunrise A and B registration periods to end today October 31, 2011

As a recap, During Sunrise A, trademark owners from within the adult entertainment industry will be able to apply for .XXX domains. During Sunrise B, trademark owners from outside the adult industry will have a chance to apply to opt out of the .XXX gTLD and block their domain name.

There has been unofficial information with regards to the end of the Sunrise periods. Blogger Elliot J. Silver posted an update indicating that Vaughn Liley, Sales Director for the ICM registry, had confirmed to him the extension of the Sunrise periods to include the weekend, this would change the end date to October 31^st, 2011. (Confirmed)

The official ICM Registry still indicates October 28 as their final date and claims that it has received over 42,000 applications already as of October 24, 2011. This number is over five times what the ICM had anticipated.

The next stage in the game will be the 17-day “Landrush” period, beginning November 8, 2011 and it applies to members of the adult entertaining industry who did not qualify during Sunrise periods. Members of the general public will be able to register all remaining .XXX domain names beginning on December 6, 2011.

We have covered the introduction of the .XXX gTLDs from the very beginning, click here to read our posts on ICANN’s new initiative. You can also click on the buttom below to follow us on Twitter and continue to receive the latest developments – including the official end date of the Sunrise periods - as they unfold.

Optimize your Social Media Monitoring in Internet911

Adriana Tayraco — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:34:00 GMT

Internet911’s Social Media Monitoring tool offers an array of options to keep track of who’s saying what about you and where. It covers mentions on Twitter, forums, blogs, YouTube, Facebook and the web in general. You set up 5 to 15 keywords and if anyone mentions them online, this tool will find it for you.

Having the best tool available has quickly become an essential part of every company’s risk management and customer engagement strategy, by utilizing Internet911 you are already one step ahead of the curve. One of the great features of Internet911 social media monitoring tool is the flexibility it offers you in terms of keywords and search options; but just like with any tool, there are tips and tricks to tweak this tool to your needs and help you better achieve your social media goals.

Here’s what you need to do to optimize your social media monitoring using Internet911:

How to select the best keywords…

…to monitor your brand:

Are you “Googleing”?

The best way to know what keywords are of relevance to your company is to Google them. If the data you get is of value to you then you have chosen well. When doing a search for your brand, keep track of what words get repeated or the words that rank higher. You can use Google’s KeyWord Tool to find out which words are being searched the most.

Include Services/Products/Employees

If your company’s brand name is too general or not well known, try including your products’ names or even your most outspoken employees plus your company name (ex. Steve Jobs Apple). Customers may be looking for you without really knowing who you are. As an example, someone may be talking about one of your managers and how pleasant it was meeting him or her at that conference – that’s a perfect opportunity for you to join in that conversation.

…to monitor your industry:

Use long-tailed keywords

Terms that are more focused and specific are more likely to convert. For this same reason, you need to monitor these terms in order to keep an eye on competition. As an example, you can add “veterinary” to your keywords but you would be overwhelmed with noise – irrelevant data. You would be better off searching for “new york veterinary small dogs”.

Go general but not too general

Try using location whenever possible. If your company sells insurance you may want to use something like “auto and home insurance quotes Toronto”. Just searching for “Insurance Toronto” or “auto insurance quote” would generate irrelevant data.

Keep an eye on industry trends and competition

Remember that you can edit, add and remove your keywords at any time. You can use this option to add your competitors’ names and /or products and see how much exposure they are getting and where. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel!

Social media monitoring will better prepare you to make decisions online and capitalize on engagement opportunities. By joining in the conversation and increasing your knowledge pool you can turn critics into believers and expand your brand’s reputation.

For more information about how to use the Social Media Tool within Internet911 and its other services, please visit our support center http://support.internet911.com/ or contact us 911support@internet911.com