Archive for April 25th, 2008

Your Identity,Your Reputation

25th April
2008
written by Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross

In May I am speaking about reputation at a conference hosted by ID Analytics.  I am looking forward to it because the more I learn about identity theft and loss, the more I see the enormous threat to personal and corporate reputation. Two things this week crossed my desk (or should I say desktop) that highlighted the strong correlation between identity theft and risk to reputation:
  • A new product is being rolled out by insurance broker Lockton and Lloyd -- Data Breach Reputation Guard. "When a data breach is followed by adverse media attention, the Data Breach Reputation Guard element of the policy will reimburse a business for reputational harm."
  • The second identity loss-related piece of information was something I read on Marketing Pilgrim noting a CNet article on new research among information security professionals. The survey by Frost & Sullivan (I could not find on their web site, so sorry) found that a whopping three-quarters of IT security execs report that avoiding reputation damage to their organization is a top priority.
Our research at Weber Shandwick found that security breaches were among the top five reasons why companies lose reputation today. The number of stolen identities is only increasing.  The connection between identity theft and reputation could not be more apparent. Am glad to know that my comments will resonate with those in the audience. Certainly fits the times.
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