We are extremely proud that Mirror Communications‘ client CoSoSys, a developer of endpoint security, device control and data loss prevention solutions, has been included in this year’s edition of Deloitte’s 2011 Technology FAST 50 top for Central Europe. CoSoSys is now part of a prestigious and very competitive list, where a technology company’s intellectual property and the subsequent revenue growth are evaluated and rewarded.

Deloitte’s FAST 50 not only rewards innovation and major contributions to the technology market. It also shows the world how intellectual property actually generates business growth, as the companies ranked have an impressive year to year revenue growth. The growth rate is not the only factor, there is a minimum revenue required to make the list and the chunk of budget invested in research and development is also important.

While both the CoSoSys team and I are extremely proud of this amazing accomplishment, the company’s inclusion is a well deserved recognition of their role in the endpoint security and data loss prevention field. CoSoSys has over the years launched a few world premiers, including the first ever cloud computing solution for device, data and endpoint security, MyEndpoint Protector, and the first out of the box DLP and endpoint security appliance – the Endpoint Protector Hardware Appliance, a plug and play hardware and software package to protect companies from all threats of the modern business environment. CoSoSys has also been extremely successful ever since their debut in the market back in 2004, reporting significant business growth and profitability every year.

I am sure they will keep on being as successful as before, even more so, and I know for a fact they have new products just waiting to amaze the world of IT security. So keep an eye on them to find out what’s next!

I’d also have to congratulate the other five Romanian companies that made it into the top. The big winner, the company on the first position of the top, being one of them – Vola.ro. Hope Romanian companies just take over the top next year!

Photo credit: carolsg on Fotolia.com

Guest post by Mihaela Lica Butler

With the June ICANN announcement that the gTLDs spectrum  will be enriched with .brands, it became obvious that the Internet, as we know it, will soon change, and the war for relevant online real estate is afoot.  Verisign predicted 1,500+ New gTLD applications for the first window , between 12 January 2012 – 12 April 2012; but ICANN will only select 500 of them all – who will be the lucky few?

Considering the  it costs $185,000 to apply for a new gTLD extension and an additional $25,000 per year to keep it active, it’s easy to assume that the lucky few will also be the powerful few, namely, those companies that understand the branding value of such domain extensions, and in the end, the PR value. PR because a branded domain is a more reliable source for the customer, and also because brand value is a part of an integrated PR strategy, after all.

Many believe that ICANN’s near $200,000 price is too high, but the long term picture seems more than rewarding. A branded domain is a stronger domain, possibly ranking higher in search, particularly in Google – as the search engine giant is already giving priority placement to relevant brands. For instance, Hilton already ranks at the top for their own brand, and for Hilton hotel deals. But there are also other travel sites selling Hilton hotel deals – and for the traveler who wants to book a room with Hilton, the latest may not be as reliable. Only the original Hilton site offers the “trust” factor, but sometimes, finding these deals on the site is not the easiest thing to do. If Hilton would structure its offerings to something highly relevant, the users, and the company, can only benefit. A .brand gTLD could be used for this purpose, and the new URL could be www.deals.hilton.

The branding benefit is here obvious: no one else, but Hilton, the trademark owner, can register this gTLD – so the brand is safe from cybersquatting, brand jacking and so on.

On another side, the .brand gTLDs open possibilities for those who want to deal with online real estate. Imagine someone buying .travel gTLD. They could be selling any domain with this extension. From france.travel, to luxury.travel and so on. There’s SEO strength in these domains, given their highly targeted keywords, and with the right content, these sites may soon supersede more established, older domains.

Then, considering the costs of registering and keeping active these domains, as well as the scrutiny involved in accepting applications by ICANN, there will be no bogus companies running them. But then, smaller businesses, that cannot afford the prices, will face hard-to beat competitors, and they’ll have to resort to other tools to keep up – namely more online PR campaigns to drive traffic to traditional domains.

In some countries, there are solutions for businesses to recoup their initial $185,000 investment. For instance, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, businesses can benefit of 80% tax exemption derived from income generate by these domains, according to VAYTON Brand Capital. Here, IP friendly legislation provides the same tax advantage for other IP assets such as trademarks, patents, registered designs as well as copyright on software. But only companies registered in Luxembourg, companies that register their IP in Luxembourg, or companies whose IP assets are in use by a Luxembourg-based business can harvest the benefits.

For ICANN, the new gTLDs are more than PR: they mean business. Serious business, with significant revenue. The plan is to release 500 new gTLDs next year, then follow them with batches of 400. Assuming that they release 900 new gTLDs in 2012, they make $189 million revenue. Which begs the question: did they really do it out of care for brands and consumers, or was this a strategy to generate a quick buck… in this case a quick 189 million bucks.

And if this is the case, why do they cheapen on PR? For a PR campaign meant to promote the new gTLDs initiative, the ICANN will only fork over $750,000 – at least this is disclosed in a Request for Proposals  issued by ICANN to provide advertising and promotion services for the launch of new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs) on July 5th 2011:

The objective of this RFP is to retain an advertising agency to develop, implement and measure the success of a global advertising and awareness campaign for ICANN to introduce new gTLDs. ICANN has a limited advertising budget of $750,000.

With or without an advertising/PR agency to manage the campaign, there’s been enough ink to raise awareness about the new gTLDs already. But the high costs of registering such gTLDs are still not justified for many business owners.

About the author
Mihaela Lica Butler is an experienced PR professional, senior partner and founder of Pamil Visions PR. She writes about the latest in the PR field at Everything PR and is a widely cited authority on search engine optimization and public relations issues (BBC News, Force for Good, Reuters, Al Jazeera and others). She also occasionally writes for SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and other online publications. To stay in touch with her latest work, follow her on Twitter.

The Sony PlayStation network hack and the millions of customer whose private information might have been accessed is one of the prominent headlines this week. So was TJX and their security breach at its time, being considered the largest data breach in history as over 40 million credit cards had been stolen throughout their stores in the US and Canada. So was every big financial data breach.

For those of you who don’t know, one of Mirror Communications’ clients, CoSoSys, develops endpoint security and data loss prevention solutions. Since I fist started to work with them, more than three years ago, I have been reading about data breaches every single day. I cannot remember the number of hospitals exposing patient data, financial institutions having client details stolen by employees, laptops and flash drives with important databases being lost or stolen, or the number of instances where military units (in the US or other countries) where either broken into and having data stolen or lost because they either weren’t paying attention, or because they did not care to properly dispose of it.

What lacks more than the obvious protection against such security breaches is knowing how to deal with the PR crisis that follows the data loss or theft. So after personally reviewing so many PR fails when it comes to data breaches, here’s a quick guide made up of useful tips to help you better deal with the consequences:

1. Don’t waste time and make the security breach known

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard of data breaches being revealed months after happening. The press sometimes gets hold of the news before the customers, creating panic and distrust. The moment you know something happened, let customers know and let the press know. Being the source of information prevents distortions and assumptions.

2. Own it!

It is your fault it happened. Not the hacker’s, not the air-headed employee’s who thought leaving company property in a car in a random parking lot was OK, not the IT guy’s who you fired that put all that project details on the Internet, not the thief’s you let into your company network so easily. You are to blame, it is your fault and the sooner you admit it the better. Employees can be trained, security can be tightened, data can be protected. If anyone can prevent something like this, it is the company in question through their policies and practices.

3. Apologize for it the right way

Yes, it’s good for your customers to know you value their privacy and wouldn’t want them exposed to data theft, fraud and other such individual disasters. But their data has been stolen, lost, or just temporarily made available to anyone with a malicious intent. So while you cared about it, you certainly did not value it enough. You screwed up and you have to apologize. Fast and properly.

4. Explain what happened, but don’t make excuses

Understanding what happened is important for your customers, and seeing you are willing to reveal the details might save some of their shattered trust. While letting them know which circumstances led to the breach, make sure it does not sound like you’re making excuses. They have entrusted their data to you, so you are responsible for what happened to it. Remember, it’s your fault, don’t go looking for escape goats in your version of how it all went down.

5. Be very clear about what you are going to do

Your next actions are extremely important and you have to be clear about new measures being taken. The fact that you’re offering free credit monitoring and investigating the issue is not enough. Your customers need to know that you will invest in improved security solutions and practices, in personnel training and overall business process monitoring. Your goal is not only to solve the current PR nightmare, your main goal should be to do everything you can to prevent a similar event from happening.

6. Keep your customers informed

The press will go on and on about it if this is a high profile case. If the malicious hackers or thieves are caught and go to trial, they will cover it. They will cover any move you make that has to do with the breach. Therefore, it is better to send updates to your customers and present your progress and your point of view. Remember the assumptions and distortions you want to keep under control!

7. If there is a class action suit, don’t start a witch hunt against customers

Some might feel free credit card monitoring and an apology is not enough. If their bank account was wiped clean or some very sensitive information has been revealed, their position is understandable. Don’t start bashing plaintiffs, they are former customers and how you treat them will take its tool on how your remaining customers see your brand and your company.

The truth is, in most cases, companies affected by breaches try to settle lawsuits fast and cut their brand image losses. That is the right way to go. Even if you pay less at the end of a long court battle, it will definitely cost you more to counter the negativity that will surround your brand afterwards.

This is just a quick guide to get you through the immediate PR crisis yielded by the data breach. After handling the immediate consequences, you will have to invest PR and marketing dollars into repairing long term effects, such as losing part of your customers, a general distrust from potential ones and getting enough positive stories out to balance all the data breach coverage.

You might think that if you are a smaller company and less people worry about your security breach means you’re better off. The truth is the press might not give you that much attention, but losing half of your customer base is a bigger blow than it is for a big corporation. Also, when you’ll want to make your positive messages known, you will deal with the same attitude from the press – lack of interest.

The best way to deal with data breaches and the PR disasters they cause is… to prevent them, of course. But allthough they happen more often than we even want to know, companies still have the wrong attitude - it only happens to others, it cannot really happen to me. So they postpone their investment in proper network protection, endpoint security and data loss prevention. They never get around to that training for their staff. They only remember it when the data breach hits the news or their customers and they’re flooded with angry messages.

Guest post by the Workbooks team

Having accurate records of communications with your clients is vital for any business. Networking, marketing, sales and retention of clients all rely heavily on the ability to easily recall and check on previous interactions. Some of the best tools on the market today that can be used to track and analyse communications and interactions with clients are web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software packages.

What is Customer Relationship Management?

Customer Relationship Management is a strategy for managing your company or business’s communications and interactions with customers and potential customers. Various Customer Relationship Management software packages are available that provide tracking, organization and analysis of various business processes, including marketing, sales, customer service and technical support. Web-based CRM software is especially popular as it provides unparalleled flexibility and accessibility to the software for employees and business owners alike.

What Can Customer Relationship Management Do?

CRM software allows for every communication and interaction of your company with a client to be easily recorded and integrated into an easy to use database. Emails, mailings, telephone calls and the customer’s replies (or the lack thereof) can all be documented. Web metrics, including such interactions as clicks and page views can also be tracked. By using Customer Relationship Management software a business owner or member of staff can have all this information at their fingertips, aiding decision making and allowing customers to experience more professional and more helpful customer service and technical support. Technical support and customer service staff need not ask repeat questions every time a customer has a problem, therefore improving the quality of the customer’s experience.

Marketing and sales staff can assess the impact of previous interactions on the client, and make better decisions going forward, thereby increasing the generation of leads and conversion of leads into sales. Customer Relationship Management software can also flag up bottlenecks in your communications, such as a particular member of staff who has been dropping the ball or a method of communication that has slower response times. This allows business owners to streamline and improve their client communications.

Advantages of Web Based Customer Relationship Management Software

Many companies now offer – and many employees now wish to take advantage of – flexible working hours and opportunities to work at home. Web-based Customer Relationship Management software allows these working conditions and the benefits that go with them to accrue to a company without sacrificing the advantages that an integrated Customer Relationship Management software solution provides. When employees are on business trips, at home, or away from the office when an opportunity or concern arises from a client, they do not need to be equipped with a company laptop on which the software is installed. Instead, the employee can use any computer with internet access to log on to the secure site and log the communications. This avoids lag times where important communications are not available to other employees, avoiding crossed wires, unnecessary communications and annoyance to the client.

This article was written by Workbooks, leading supplier of web CRM software.

Have you heard of the damage the Stuxnet worm has been causing businesses and their computer systems around the world? Have you heard of the huge impact it has had on cyber warfare? Did you know it is a USB transmitted malware that’s not that hard to stop? Have you heard of cases where entire customer lists are copied and stolen by former employees, upset that they were fired or just because they wanted more money from a competitor? Have you heard of people just walking into a company and copying all the private data stored there on a simple USB stick or on a smart phone and just walking out with it?

While we love our mobility and portability – who doesn’t love to run their business from a mobile phone when stranded in an airport for hours, waiting for their next flight? – there are serious security threats that come with the use of portable devices, especially if we don’t know what we’re doing. Enter data loss prevention, device control and endpoint security solutions, some of the best being brilliantly developed by Mirror Communications client CoSoSys. What you also might not know is that there are virtually none such solutions to protect Mac computers! Not only does CoSoSys provide such a business application, they also have just released a new verison of their Endpoint Protector 2009 for Mac device control and endpoint security solution!

What the new product does is make sure that while you’re traveling, you can still stay productive and complete tasks which require the use of portable devices, while staying safe from the threats I’ve mentioned earlier. The new release also offers companies a closer watch on what their employees are doing with files and data accessed on or copied to portable devices.

“The new Mac version of Endpoint Protector focuses on two important aspects of device control and data loss prevention – keeping a close eye on data activity within the company to prevent possible leaks or theft (and File Tracing enables the needed close watch and audit) and making sure productivity and mobility are not impaired by security policies, while at the same time providing a safe way to work with portable devices,”  said Roman Foeckl, CoSoSys CEO.

The two main features of the new data loss prevention and endpoint security solution for Mac / Apple are File Tracing and offline temporary passwords. When enabled, the File Tracing feature logs all data and file related activity and stores it for later auditing. Each time an employee edits, deletes or renames a certain file originating from or subsequently copied to a portable device, his actions are recorded, along with his user credentials and the device specifications.

Offline temporary passwords address the needs of road warriors, or simply put, those business men that need to travel a lot and still need to use their comuter, copy files to and from it, to do their job. When on a business trip, employees might be unable to connect to the Internet and need to authorize a new portable device, a memory stick to save a presentation for an event etc. To help them save time and complete their tasks, a temporary offline password can be provided to them by phone by authorized company representatives and subsequently they can authorize devices for a period ranging from 30 minutes to one week.

Of course these are only the most important new features that the new Endpoint Protector release for Mac device control features, there are a lot more functionalities keeping your data safe and business advantages that come from working safely with portable devices to consider and you can review them all here.

A while ago, I tried to access a website I like to read, home of the odd and unusual, offbeat news, with plenty of gorgeous pictures to support the content, and flawless copywriting. To my surprise, Google had blocked the site in my browser, because it contained malware. This happened because of a flaw in MediaTemple’s security patches for sites built on WordPress, that allowed hackers to insert a malicious script. It had to be there, unobserved, for quite a while, if Google decided to block the site.

To my knowledge, many MT customers who host there blogs, have to pay enormous sums, sometimes ridiculously high, for hosting, bandwidth, etc. A popular site like Life in the Fast Lane has seen, no doubt, bank-breaking bills. The price would be well worth it, if the site owner had peace of mind. But if it happened once, who says that it will never happen again.

MT assumes no responsibility whatsoever for WordPress-based sites hosted on their servers. This, in my opinion, doesn’t justify the high prices paid by their customers. Some bloggers are not IT experts – a hosting company has to provide a level of support that gives these website owners security and confidence.

Luxembourg-based Stidia is such a company.  Stidia’s IT engineers actively monitor logs, server access, website uptime, and fluctuations. In addition, they also simulate full scale attacks on Stidia servers and client websites, and apply the fixes without disturbing their customers. The monitoring is on-going, the highlight of this company’s offering, human powered service versus automated security patches.

I am not aware of their prices – the services are available, apparently, only for Stidia’s corporate customers. An amateur blogger cannot always afford the price of safe hosting like this. But for Life in the Fastlane, this could be a better choice than MT – and who knows, even cheaper? Although server-location could be an issue: Life in the Fastlane would become a Canadian website hosted on a Luxembourg server. Server location would influence search engine positioning for the site, probably not in its owner’s best interest. On the other hand, it’s always better to be a few positions lower in the search results, than not appearing at all because of a Google ban.

So if your website is in need of desperate attention, Stidia’s engineers might be the answers to your problems. Or some other company that offers actively managed hosting. If you can think of any, list it in the comments, and don’t forget to add server location for us.

Disclosure – Stidia is a Pamil Visions PR customer

RSS might very well be one of the most overlooked technologies out there. We all use it, to read, to get content on different pages, to promote our content and our influence, but we rarely talk about it, there are a handful of articles on strategies, best practices and the likes. But there are special plugins to enhance your feed, there is RSS feed advertising, there are buttons showing RSS readers numbers. So here’s the paradox: if the technology is actually important, why do we fail to talk about it?

As it happens to some technologies, they are extremely useful, but lack a certain coolness factor, so we ignore them. We use them, we appreciate their value, but they are almost nonexistent in what we say, write or recommend. And then a comment someone makes that they have subscribed to an RSS feed reminds us that we depend on it!

For example, the RSS technology powers the following for me:

• my blogs’ feeds, which makes them easier to keep up with for my readers
• my reading list – blogs, online magazines, you name it, I have subscribed and I check their feed daily. I only go on their website to comment, tweet the article if I find it relevant for those following me or download something if needed,
• promote content – my blog feed is on my LinkedIn page, Facebook page and a bunch of other profiles I have created all over the internet. The RSS delivered version of what I publish here is definitely a more powerful hook than a simple link.

We claim it’s dead, we say it’s not earth-shaking, but how would our lives be without RSS? Wouldn’t we still need a tool to help us keep up with everything that’s published in our field, wouldn’t we need some way to plug in to our blog content from other pages? I know for sure I wouldn’t be able to create new notes for all my posts, I’d forget a few time, and would stop sharing on Facebook. I know I would probably bookmark the several hundreds of blogs I currently read, but would fail miserably at reading them each time they publish something.

How about you? What do you use RSS for? Would you miss it if it disappeared tomorrow? And most importantly, why do you think we’d ignore what’s clearly useful technology just because it’s not as cool or as trendy as others, sometimes less useful, newcomers?

Sometimes work is purely fun and I feel bad getting paid for it. Like being there when this fun ad was created for one of the Mirror Communications clients, CoSoSys, vendor of leading endpoint security and data loss prevention solutions.

The ad is meant to emphasize how a company can simply not worry about thieves coming in and trying to steal their sensitive data. More on data loss and theft, how to prevent it and how serious it can be here.

Hope you enjoy the ad! Oh, and I challenge you to find me in the ad

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

The last week of January 2009 comes with the 20th edition of the Monday reading tips brought to you by Words of a Broken Mirror.

We’ll start with some interesting top 10 trends for 2009 from Samll Business Trends: the top 10 software publishing trends by Tim Berry and the top 10 global trends for SMBs by Laurel Delaney.

Mihaela Lica raises the issues of spam-like ads on Twitter, an attempt thought of by Magpie, not Twitter’s monetization team as you might have thought.

Lip-sticking has published an inspirational guest post by Mary Schmidt on powerful first ladies, what they have achieved and what women in general can accomplish, regardless of being married to powerful men.

Brad Shorr of Word Sell Inc. discussed the issue of business-to-business sales and how managing daily pains helps build or demolish businesses and individual careers.

Brian Solis of PR 2.0 pointed out that social networks are growing up as more adults are joinging the conversation.

Hoping you’ve enjoyed this week’s list, I invite you, as always, to share your recommendations in the comment box. See you next week!