How often do you Google your name and company name to see what’s out there? Once a month? Once a week? Everyday?

Recently one of my clients had his account hacked, and we spent two days trying to clear it up. Well, not really, the tech team spent two days clearing it up. It just so happens that the hacker accessed his website and added two files that were loaded with viruses. We think they were there for about a week before they were noticed. Fortunately, Google noticed it when they were indexing the site and they put one of those big, blaring red labels that says “WARNING, THIS SITE MAY LOAD YOUR COMPUTER WITH A VIRUS” – Not good for a brand, eh?

The site was down for a day while we investigated and identified the files that were added, and went through line-by-line for the code on the other pages, and removed the malicious content. His site is now up and running again (oh, and I didn’t charge him for that either, another BE lifetime perk …)

The entire situation made me think a bit more though about what’s out there and what we need to be mindful of with our brand reputation and how we each are very vulnerable to technology, even when we use it powerfully to serve others. There are many services that will monitor your computer, servers and other business assets remotely, but if you aren’t yet ready for that level of support name sure you hop over to Google as often as you can and see what’s out there with your name on it. If you see anything malicious, respond immediately!

Have a Brandtastic day!