The article cites thegrugq, the author of several practical guides to protecting yourself from hacking. He points out that, “Security is a trade-off against efficiency” and that it can be difficult to make the additional effort when consequences seem remote or unlikely.
But if the hack of AshleyMadison…and Adobe.com…and even the website for Dominos Pizza…tells us anything, the chance of being hacked is no longer remote (check Have I Been Pwned? to see if you already have been). Now is a good time to reconsider what the right level of operational security is for you—and implement it, consistently.
Teenagers are fluent social media users. Many are adept at managing their online reputations and are careful about what they reveal online.
But social media leads some into uncomfortable situations that can harm their future opportunities. As a parent, relative, neighbor, sibling or peer, you can help them avoid that.
These sometimes harrowing predicaments can cause embarrassment, shame and fear, and make teens feel helpless or trapped in a situation that can spiral out of their control – and even endanger them. Carelessness, as well as common adolescent traits like not knowing how to handle a crowd situation or being overly trusting, can contribute to such issues.
Common issues they experience include:
– Joking about harming a teacher or peer in an email or text. Schools increasingly have rules that require immediate suspension as well as contacting the police when such material comes to light.
– Exchanging, taking or being the recipient of nude photographs or videos that go viral, being published on many online sites without their permission. This can lead to a criminal investigation, even if they were not directly involved in taking them, but were only present when they were. It can also result in what is known as “revenge porn.”
– Cyberbullying. The FBI publishes resources online to help educate potential victims about it. There are many other online resources, as well. One comprehensive such site is the Anti-Defamation League’s, which has extensive guides to help teens deflect and otherwise navigate cyberbullying.
If you have teenagers, or children approaching adolescence, visiting such sites and learning about the issues is the first step in communicating to them that you can always be approached if they have a concern and need help. If they fear you will be judgmental, are not available or will become angry, they will avoid letting you know if it does happen to them. If you feel they may be a victim and aren’t discussing the situation, consider whether they would be more comfortable speaking to another family member, a trusted counselor or law enforcement professionals. It is not an exaggeration to say you may save their life or future opportunities by doing so.
Our exclusive new guide to taking ownership of your online image is out. How to Look Better Online: Online Reputation Management for CEOs, Rising Stars, VIPs and Their Organizations was written by our founder, Shannon M. Wilkinson, in collaboration with our editing, content and design team.
How to Look Better Online draws upon our experiences improving and preventing the online reputation issues faced by a range of our clients. It is available as a downloadable eBook for all platforms. You can see a preview, learn more details and order a copy here.
Suppressing legal notices on the Internet is an oft-requested online reputation management service. Old legal notices can be an issue for anyone, including well-established organizations as well as private individuals. (If you operate a business in the investment-related industry, you are almost invariably facing such issues.) Because legal notices rank highly on Google searches they are a constant source of concern. This is especially true when you did not break any laws but were fined for an overlooked tax or professional license fee requirement, are the focus of a claim by a vendor whose work may be under review or are named in a sealed legal action or divorce that was never intended to become public.
SEC, local, state & federal government notices common types
Common types of notices include filings that are made by the SEC as well as by local, state and federal governments. They often include PDFs detailing the legal case as well as press releases that are posted to announce a finding. When these are published on government websites, they may be given their own URL – a customized website address with the subject’s name. That makes it highly searchable. Legal and government sites often host vast quantities of data, have many visitors, and have a high credibility ranking. So relevant pages on their sites usually appear toward the top of search results. In searches of your name, their pages will often appear before your own biographical pages. That is where the problem lies.
A strategic plan will ensure new content ranks highly
If your goal is to suppress (lower) such filings, there are reasons your task will be challenging. The first is that if you are like many individuals or organizations, you may not have a large presence on the Internet. Your organization may have a website; you may have a LinkedIn page. If you are prominent you may have a Wikipedia page (which includes a reference to the legal issue with a link), as well as numerous media articles about you. But you do not own much of that content. That means you don’t manage it—it is out of your control. The second reason is that if the legal filings have lingered for years, they have also probably been aggregated, or republished, by multiple other websites, which has created additional listings about them.
Substantive content has the most credibility online
Overcoming such content on Google entails strategically publishing substantial amounts of new content that is designed specifically to target and minimize the legal notice. It needs to be optimized to attain high ranking. Even then, not all content ranks highly. Optimization is like the cord in a string of beads. If content consists of many beads, they are useless without the string that holds them together, forming a content collection that you want to dominate searches of your name. The more substantive you or your organization is, the higher the quality it should be. This explains why a strategic plan is the first step in all online reputation management campaigns. If maintaining a positive reputation and taking ownership of your brand online is important to you, you have many options for improving the situation. Realize that content won’t stay in place without being continually maintained and refreshed. A good strategic plan will take all of these elements into account to ensure you will see measurable results.
What are a few of the most common mistakes CEOs and top executives make that can lead to reputation damage to them and their organizations?
Ms. Wilkinson: Many CEOs…they don’t own a lot of real estate in their name online, and they have not been proactive in creating a strategy to publish information about them on the Internet. When that happens the world creates your profile online, or Internet bots do. Whatever information third parties publish about you–whether credible or not, whether quality or not–will fill out the top pages of the Google search in your name and you have no control over that. The longer that stays the more difficult it is to replace it with more relevant information.
Are these the same issues they were dealing with a few years ago? How has the reputation risk landscape changed?
Ms. Wilkinson: The reputation risk landscape has gone through three developments. The first, which CEOs noticed around 2005, was the first wave of proliferation of anonymous malicious commentary that appeared widely on the Internet and was often directed toward companies, toward CEOs. The second wave was the proliferation of consumer reviews online, particularly geared toward customer service and complaints. The third phase we’re in now is the lack of privacy online, the continual spills of confidential in-house memos and emails, and of course the hacking.
What are some best practices executives and organizations can take to make it less likely they will fall victim to reputation slip-ups?
Ms. Wilkinson: The first is to look at the company’s internal culture. A lot of negativity comes from employees so it’s a good time to look inside at the opportunities employees have, and to look at diversity and inclusion, particularly providing women with opportunities. This is really the hot seat CEOs face now. This is going to be an issue for every company—employees, consumers are looking at how equitable companies are at providing opportunities for women, minorities, the LGBT group.
What makes top executives susceptible to engaging on social media in a way that can cause them reputation headaches?
Ms. Wilkinson: Some lack an understanding of how many people use social media and how they use it. I think most CEOs don’t encounter issues because of what they say on social media, it’s what is said on social media in response to their actions, that is the bigger threat. They’re so scrutinized and it’s so easy for a comment to be taken out of context.
Future Crimes exposes the ways criminals, corporations and countries are using new and emerging technologies against you – and how this makes you more vulnerable than you ever imagined.
Here are two excerpts that stand out:
If you don’t own and control your own online persona, it’s extremely easy for a criminal to aggregate the known information about you and use it for a wide variety of criminal activity, ranging from identity theft to espionage. Indeed, there are many such examples of this occurring, especially for high-profile individuals.
The more data you produce, the more organized crime is happy to consume. Many social media companies have been hacked, including LinkedIn (6.5 million accounts), Snapchat (4.6 million names and phone numbers), Google, Twitter and Yahoo. Transactional crime groups are responsible for a full 85% of those data breaches, and their goal is to extract the greatest amount of data possible , with the highest value in the cyber underground.
In 2013, the data broker Experian mistakenly sold the personal data of nearly two-thirds of all Americans to an organized crime group in Vietnam. The massive breach occurred because Experian failed to do due diligence.
Goodman concludes Future Crimes with an appendix of tips that will help readers avoid more than 85 percent of the digital threats that they face each day. (Turning off your computer at night is one.) Reading the book will help you understand why they are so important.
Risk Management is the leading journal for risk managers, and I wrote this piece to help that audience anticipate changes in the risk management landscape—specifically, in the area of reputation risk. It includes our predictions for the biggest potential reputation-related crises in 2015, as well as a look at the current shape of the reputation management industry.
Every day, it seems, another major American brand experiences a crisis. Despite a large and experienced industry of experts that fix them, they don’t seem to be going away. Last fall the CEO of Microsoft became one of many corporate leaders to unwittingly create one.
Why are so many CEOs stumbling in the diversity department? The problem often starts internally. Statements and actions by CEOs and other leaders portray them as out of touch with the people their companies target as consumers. Outrage ignites online, goes viral, and then lands on prime-time news. CEOs and boards are surprised over the impact of their actions or statements. They are often puzzled as to why a backlash occurred at all.
If you are a CEO, there are several steps you can take to ensure you don’t become the next target of online backlash. The first is to understand why these crises are happening so often and what they share in common.
My recent Forbes.com piece, The Most Successful CEOs Embrace Customer Diversity, sheds light on the problem. How else can CEOs incorporate a more well-balanced blend of diversity within their corporate cultures? Conduct a search for #diversity and you will find plenty of suggestions.
