Symantec on defence of medium and large businesses

On Monday, Symantec launched a new consulting service aimed at combating online fraud and protecting brand equity. The new service, directed at medium to large businesses, is a program that offers Symantec services, education and ongoing monitoring designed to protect businesses that conduct financial transactions and their customers from fraud.

Symantec Online Fraud Protection offers training to protect the reputation of the business and shield them from Phishing and Pharming threats. The banking industry is the largest vertical with this new offering in the Symantec consulting lineup, but really any business that is worried about online fraud and wants to do something about it can benefit. However, with that said, do you really need someone to come in and do your security and compliance manager's job for them? If so, maybe it's time to replace the manager instead of shelling out money to fix a problem.

The loss of faith in a company, and the loss of brand trust or erosion as it's called, is still a growing problem. The recent Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec listed this as one of the major problems facing enterprise organizations and consumers.

"Fraud attacks are becoming more sophisticated and are increasingly targeting businesses and customers with devastating effects," said Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst, Enderle Group. "Organizations generally lack an effective comprehensive approach to mitigating online fraud. In addition, the damage that results from fraud now goes beyond just financial damage...."

The total consulting package consists of Phishing monitoring, Malware Intelligence and Analysis, consumer education, online fraud incident response and counter measures, as well as transaction monitoring. The other offer with the service is a resident expert. "The offering also includes an expert resident from Symantec, with access to a variety of security intelligence data sources, who works with in-house staff to provide security expertise and serve as the primary point of contact leading all online fraud protection efforts," a Symantec brief explains.