Network Solutions engages social media to act faster in crisis

Network Solutions engages social media to act faster in crisis
- Creates online feedback forum to address customer concerns in real-time

Yesterday Network Solutions issued an E-Commerce Data Security alert to merchants who might have been affected by an unauthorized code on servers supporting some of its ecommerce merchants’ websites. The code has been promptly removed and all of the ecommerce servers are checked regularly. No servers supporting Networksolutions.com customers were affected. We deeply regret this grave situation and are doing whatever it takes to proactively reach out to affected merchants and have been working round the clock since the announcement went out yesterday. Social media tools have become Network Solutions’ friend in need in this crisis situation and there is just no other faster mechanism to respond to customer enquiries in a timely manner. Some of the things we are doing to best communicate with our customers during this situation include:

Feedback forum for customers to ask questions and clarify concerns: A dedicated online forum www.careandprotect.com has been created to facilitate conversations between affected merchants and Network Solutions. Our team has been diligently responding to questions raised on the forum in real-time and creating blog posts each time a particular issue/concern appears to become a dominant theme.

Social Media Monitoring Tools to listen and participate in the Conversation We are lucky we have had a Social media strategy in place to connect with customers and the community . This has helped us listen to the customers and participate in the conversation. Radian6 is a tool that we use along with Twitter Search , Google Alerts , Backtype and others.

Twitter response from real Network Solutions personnel Vs. automated responses: We believe it is our duty to respond to any concerns or questions being raised on Twitter. Even though it may be hard to help within 140 characters, we are ensuring we respond immediately to tweets that need attention. Instead of an automated RSS response, we are taking shifts to monitor Twitter and provide a response almost instantaneously.

Proactively reached out to media/bloggers: We ensured that while our customers were informed first and foremost, we also reached out to the media and blogging community to help us get the information out. Thanks to the following for helping us keep our customer informed

Brian Kreb’s Washington Post’s Blog Security Fix

Chad Kettner Domain Name News

Steve Ragan The Tech Herald

Dan Goodin  The Register

Larry Walsh Channel Insider

Robert McMillan CSO Blog : Network World

Here is a quote from Channel Insider

It should come as no surprise that hackers targeted Network Solutions, since it support so many business clients and provides online payment processing services. While everyone knows about the massive breaches against TJX (94 million credit cards) and Hannaford Supermarkets (4 million), the payment processors themselves are increasingly under attack.

By comparison, the Network Solutions breach is relatively small. In 2005, CardSystems Solutions, a processor of Visa and MasterCard payments, suffered a massive breach that exposed more than 40 million credit card numbers. In January, Heartland Payment Systems disclosed that a network breach may have exposed more than 100 million credit cards.

This does not take away the importance we give to this issue. We assure you that we are doing what’s best for our customers who might be affected by this data security issue and are working round the clock to ensure all their concerns are addressed.  In closing we would like to assure the customers of Network Soutions that this issue is contained to our Ecommerce merchants and is not in anyway related to customers of other products.