Hacking and cyber attacks aren’t just cheesy plot lines in sci-fi and action flicks anymore. They are a legitimate threat to businesses of all types. Whether you picture an over-caffeinated 22-year-old prodigy named Spider banging away on his keyboard or a highly educated and formally trained team of super-hackers, any business that stores customer information is vulnerable to the threat of cyber attacks.
Companies ranging from high-profile production giants to state-level insurance subsidiaries have experienced cyber attacks recently. With these cyber attacks showing no signs of slowing down, even President Obama continues to voice the need to revamp cybersecurity laws. However, no legislation can entirely prevent cyber attacks and the company that gets hacked will ultimately be the party taking the biggest hit.
What Does This Mean For Lead Generation Companies?
As a lead generation company, your business delivers countless personal records on a daily basis. The storage of these leads (that were generated by you or acquired otherwise) makes businesses like yours the prototypical target for cyber attacks. With the increase in cyber attacks, storing sensitive, personally identifiable information has become more of a liability than an asset. If your data is breached, you are at fault. As the risk and penalties of storing leads and data increase, the benefits of retaining this information have not increased and do not come close to matching the consequences of a cyber attack.
What Should Lead Gen Companies Do?
Now is the time to protect your business and the best way to do it is simple: data management. While you don’t need to wipe your entire database the second a lead leaves your hands, there is a proven strategy that you can adopt to protect your leads and your business. The key to data protection is managing the specific fields that are stored and limiting the storage length. As more and more lead businesses continue to adopt data protection strategies, the industry as a whole is moving in the same direction.
How boberdoo Can Help
Due to these industry changes, boberdoo has developed a two-step process that allows you to manage your leads to your exact specifications and at the intervals of your choosing. Our system allows you to specify which fields you would like removed after time X and which fields you would like removed after time Y. For example, let’s say you generate auto finance leads and capture sensitive data such as Social Security number. You can set your boberdoo system to remove all sensitive data after 3 days, yet retain all additional fields and contact information. Then, after 10 days have expired, you can remove any additional fields of your choosing. Alternatively, your data can even be removed immediately after all deliveries for the lead have been attempted.
These settings allow you to manage and retain your data only as long as you truly need it, whether that be the length of your lead return period or the interval at which you reprocess leads (if you do so). By limiting the fields and the length that they are stored, you directly and dramatically reduce the risk of a cyber attack. With the capabilities within the boberdoo system, you can perfectly align your data management strategy with your current business practices to ensure that your data security measures don’t conflict with your day-to-day operations and optimization.
If you are a lead generation company with questions regarding data protection, please submit an inquiry. If you are a current boberdoo client and would like to implement a data management plan, feel free to open a support ticket and we will work with you to customize a plan that reduces your risk without limiting your revenue potential.
boberdoo.com is a leading producer of lead distribution software for lead generation companies, direct marketing firms, media and ad agencies and advanced publishers. Since 2001 our software has been evolving into the most sophisticated solution on the market built to accommodate the expanding needs of our clients. To learn more about the boberdoo system and to find out exactly how it can help take your business to the next level, feel free to call us at 800-776-5646 or click the red Contact Us tab.