Whitepaper
Downlod PDF Version

BD-BrandProtect Perspective:
Protecting the Integrity of Your Brand from Online Risk Exposure

Moving to a New Model of Brand Protection

Not unlike terrorism, online attacks, identity theft and Internet fraud can never be completely defeated, only mitigated. This requires a continuous commitment on the part of organizations to be vigilant by not only investing in appropriate technologies but also by building a culture of awareness, designing business policies and processes to combat online infractions and becoming cognizant of the damage that can be inflicted on both corporate brands and customer trust.

In today’s heightened regulatory environment, organizations must attest to the effectiveness of their internal processes. As a result, there is now an urgent call to action for companies to immediately establish an enterprise-wide state of readiness to combat Internet fraud, reduce the severity and levels of online brand abuse and mitigate the financial harm to customers and the collateral reputational risk to the corporate brand.

In adopting this new model of brand protection, there are certain industry best practices to keep in mind:

• According to a comprehensive report released this past September by the CMO Council, a not-for-profit global think tank, a key strategy for securing brand integrity involves the adoption of consistent security and privacy policies across the enterprise. This means executives at every level of the business must come together to protect the brand at an enterprise level.
• The report goes on to identify three critical actions organizations must take to preserve brand trust. In a nutshell, companies are urged to: (1) Prevent infractions by implementing the right technologies and security policies; (2) Communicate openly and proactively with customers, business partners, shareholders and the press in the event of security breaches; and (3) Put a plan in place to help victims who are affected by online infractions.

These industry best practices are captured by the Brand Protection Roadmap set out in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Roadmap to establish a state of enterprise readiness

In essence, this strategy postulates that certain policies, processes and procedures should be established in the early stages of a brand protection program to ensure a high probability of success. An effective brand protection strategy should contemplate such issues as resource and process requirements, timelines, deliverables and expected outcomes, and often includes the following elements:

1. The establishment of an Internet Brand Protection Council with representation from, but not limited to, the following stakeholder groups: Marketing, Branding, E-business, Human Resources, Public Relations, Corporate Legal and Security & Fraud. The objective of bringing together this cross-functional group is to ensure that a philosophy of brand protection is instilled throughout the enterprise among all key stakeholders.
2. The development and implementation of brand protection policies and response processes based on corporate risk management strategies. By adopting a defined set of procedures, companies can reduce the impact of online brand attacks and minimize the potential damage they might otherwise suffer.
3. Corporate training to foster a culture of asset protection. Training documentation should include information on how to implement a response process, how to identify online brand abuses and how to report brand abuse attacks. It can also set out tactics for communicating with key stakeholders in the event of security breaches.
4. Baseline metrics that enable an organization to measure project success and quantify the benefits that accrue from a brand protection strategy. With appropriate metrics, companies can begin to align their online brand protection processes with their enterprise-wide performance scorecard to measure the extent to which the business benefits by the elimination of online threats.
5. Customer satisfaction metrics that enable an organization to gauge its service provider’s contribution. Through this type of ongoing assessment, companies can intelligently determine if their online protection service providers are delivering the full anticipated value.

One of the primary objectives of an effective brand protection program is to enable organizations to establish long-term policies, strategies and processes that involve cross-functional participation to improve online asset management.

With this type of long-term corporate focus on risk management and prevention, companies can often minimize the damages resulting from online criminal activity, as illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3 – Collaborative proactive brand protection

To gain access to these benefits, however, it’s important for organizations to look for service providers with a key set of capabilities, including:

• Best-of-breed detection services to scan the Internet for instances of online brand abuse, detect infractions no matter where they’re located and determine their strength and influence.
• Proprietary filtering technology to filter the data captured and identify only the infractions that matter most to you.
• A robust human data analysis process to ensure all information you receive is prioritized, rather than simply “dumped” into an online portal.
• Global takedown capabilities that ensure offending site owners are contacted and Cease & Desist communications are sent in a timely manner to ISPs, upstream providers and CERTs around the world.
• The provision of post-incident forensics ranging from trace routing, WHOIS IP addresses, commentary logs, cached site copies, data stamps, details of steps taken to remove or eliminate brand infractions and a CD of historical information that can be sent to law enforcement agencies to prosecute cyber-criminals.

As the CMO Council report states:
“A company’s reaction to a breach affects the brand trust, which is why marketers must generate comprehensive response plans. A company that delays its response to a breach, provides vague statements, or refuses to comment altogether only increases that damage to its reputation that began with the breach itself. A response plan should be designed to demonstrate, quickly, clearly and publicly, that a company is fully committed to addressing the problem and undoing any real or potential damage to customers.”(8)

8 “Secure the Trust of Your Brand: How Security and IT Integrity Influence Corporate Reputation”, A CMO Council Report, September 2006, page 21

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Next