Denial Of Service Attack Crashes JP Morgan 

Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and More Hacked 

It’s never a bad time to improve your website’s security. Trust Guard can help avoid hacking with PCI Compliance Scanning.

Despite the fact that hacking seems like something from a movie or from the future it isn’t. It’s a very serious threat. Because of our fast, technological advances, and our technology drenched society, even teenagers are quickly learning how to operate, control, and manipulate the Internet. While in high school most of my friends didn’t even know what the Internet was, now even my youngest brother knows some html code. Cyber criminals are not the same as real life criminals in the sense that these people are technologically advanced, and almost impossible to catch once they’ve committed a crime. Let’s take Anonymous for example. They are a network of hackers who try to, in their eyes, do good. They break into high security systems and pull out top secret information to make public. If they can get into the Pentagon, which they allegedly have accomplished, it’s assumed they can get into everywhere. And, most of them haven’t been traced. Governments can’t find them. And it’s the same with lower level hackers who maybe pulled some credit card numbers from a site here or there. They are rarely, if ever, caught.

It’s not so difficult to hack into a website and access its data or damage files. This data is typically unprotected unless the has website recently had a PCI compliant security scan. Website security scanning basically uses hacker techniques against them. The PCI scan looks  for any security holes and notifies the owners so they can block them before a hacker can get through. There are almost always security holes, in fact we find them over eighty percent of the time. It’s that easy to get into a site, sit, wait, take. At the same time it’s easy to prevent hacking. If businesses used an SSL Certificate to protect moving data, and website security scanning to protect data, it would be very difficult for hackers to thrive as they do. But because the Internet is misunderstood, hackers are not taken as seriously as they should be and people are suffering massive losses from data theft, identity theft, and bankruptcy every year.

Cyber space is no longer something of science fiction, or the movies. Hackers are not futuristic geniuses we’ve seen in movies like, “Hackers”. They are real, trained, and difficult to catch. Each year millions of dollars are lost, websites compromised, identities are stolen, and lives are ruined. The “future” is now.

Thanks to a partnership with PayDotCom, a leading 3rd party payment processing service, we were able to run a comprehensive split test across thousands of different website’s checkout pages, comparing the conversion rates of 4 variables:

- No seals
- McAfee Secure seal
- Trust Guard ‘Security Scanned’ Contemporary seal
- Trust Guard ‘Security Scanned’ Chrome seal

After nearly 200,000 unique customers visiting PayDotCom’s checkout, Google awarded a clear winner – the Trust Guard Chrome seal.

In second place was Trust Guard’s Contemporary seal, followed by McAfee Secure in third, and No seals in fourth.

Based on the results of the test, the Trust Guard Chrome seal increased sales over No seals by 3.98% with a 98% confidence interval, whereas McAfee Secure had the lowest increase of only 1.47%.

That means that the Trust Guard Chome increased overall sales 2.7 times more than McAfee!

In fact, here’s a chart projecting how many additional orders each seal would have generated based on each conversion rate.

As you can see, the McAfee Secure seal would have generated 404 additional sales, the Trust Guard Contemporary seal would have generated 622 additional sales, and the Trust Guard Chrome would have generated 1,095 additional sales!

And here’s the best part. This test was performed on the very first page of the checkout at the very bottom of the page!!! Just think of the significance of that.

If adding just a single Trust Guard Chrome seal at the bottom of one page can increase conversions by 4%, just imagine what our full suite of seals placed strategically on your website can do!!!

Which leads me to my second announcement.

We have officially launched the New Trust Guard Chrome Seal to ALL of our Members!

In fact, the new chrome style is already in your member control panel. All you have to do is go and select it and it will instantly update on your website.

You don’t even have to replace the code!

Based on the increased conversions we’ve seen from this test and several other split tests we’ve done internally (which have all won and have all beaten McAfee Secure), we highly recommend that you update your seals to the Chrome style as soon as possible.

Once again, thank you for your business. We appreciate your patronage and look forward to continuing to help you with your Security, Privacy, and Business Verification needs now and into the future!

Sincerely,

Dave Brandley, President
Trust Guard

P.S. To access your Chrome seals, log into your member control panel and click on ‘Get Code’ and then ‘Advanced Options’. Then just click on the Chrome seal and press the update button at the bottom of the page.

It’s called Shopper Approved.

Shopper Approved is a state-of-the-art customer rating and review service, specifically designed to help e-commerce websites effectively gather, and then prominently display customer feedback, in order to help entice, educate and motivate new potential customers to buy.

We’ve been running several live-beta tests over the last couple months, and the results have been nothing short of amazing, with nearly 1 out of every 2 customers providing initial ratings and/or reviews, and almost 1 out of every 3 customers opting-in to fill out a full survey once they receive their order!

People in our beta test are getting tons of great ratings, reviews and testimonials – all automatically! This is the kind of social proof every website needs.

We’re just about to officially open the doors, but before we do, we need your help in choosing the final seal design from 3 possible contenders.

Please select the overall seal design below that:

1 – you like the best, and
2 – that you think your customers will be most likely to respond to

Once again, thank you for your participation and ongoing support. On behalf of myself and everyone here at Trust Guard, I want you to know that we appreciate the opportunity to serve you, and we look forward to working with you in 2010!

Sincerely,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

We’ve tested Trust Guard against some of our major competitors, and the results are amazing (so look for the big news in February of next year)!

Anyways, as I was talking to him, he told me he was going to be in Vegas next month to meet with his partners on his 7 Figure Code re-launch. That caught my interest.

Turns out he’s decided to give away 10,000, yes that’s Ten Thousand copies of his best-selling ‘7 Figure Code‘ course away for free!

He’s sold thousands of copies of this course for $1,297 and now he’s giving it away. The best part is that there are no catches, no monthly commitments, no fixed continuity or any of that stuff.

The one catch however, is that he’s giving all 10,000 away on a first come, first served basis starting on Dec. 15th, BUT you can go get on the early-bird list right now. Just go to http://download.the7figurecode.com and sign up to get your free copy today!

For those of you that know Mike, he is a great guy and he has helped literally tens of thousands of website owners build, improve, and run their businesses online.

This is a very unique opportunity to learn from one of the best internet marketers on the planet, and the price is right.

At least go check out the short video on his re-launch site at http://download.the7figurecode.com

Till next time!

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

We anticipate 2010 to be an incredible year for Trust Guard, with anticipated seal views exceeding 2.5 billion by over 400 million people.

In an effort to continually improve our services, we feel that a new, modern seal design should be added to our lineup, which is why we would like to propose the addition of our new Trust Guard ‘Chrome’ design.

While the new Chrome design retains the 4 standard sizes, we’ve decided to make it one solid color instead of the traditional two-tone design. What makes the Chrome seal stand out, is the use of color hues to make it appear to be reflective, like chrome or glass. We’ve also added some additional color options to the Chrome design that aren’t available in our other seal designs, namely charcoal and silver.

So, what do you think? We would love to know! Please cast your vote below.

Thank you again for your valuable feedback as we continue to help you improve your online trust, security, and conversion. Please leave more feedback and comments below.

Attention – all members that signed up before February 2008! Important Announcement!

While most of our members have upgraded to our new member control panel and custom seals, there are still some of you that signed up before February 2008 that are using our very old, non-custom seals. You should have received an email informing you that all old non-custom seals are being discontinued on December 31st, 2009. Please log into your new member control panel and update your seals with your new custom seal code before the end of the year to avoid any interruptions in your service.

Thanks again from all of us here at Trust Guard.

Happy Holidays!

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

“It Will Include Major Trust Certifications Within Its Search Results by adding… VeriSign, buySAFE, Trust Guard and Other Trust Seals To Help Shoppers Make Informed Choices Upfront”

You can find out more about this announcement in a press release at Businesswire.com.

TheFind is a unique shopping search engine that currently attracts over 13 million shoppers every month, and is built upon a philosophy of being the most comprehensive shopping destination online.  What is amazing is that TheFind has sent traffic to over 100,000 unique retailers just in the last 30 days!

They recently launched a new Merchant Center for every merchant – large or small – who wants greater visibility and relevance within TheFind’s search results.  Simply log in to clain your store and submit your key information – including payment and shipping options, Twitter and blog URLs, customer service links and more – so that TheFind can share it with shoppers and help increase your store’s relevance and conversion rates.

Once you’ve claimed your store, you’ll be able to submit coupons and promotions and upload your logo and physical store locations.  Also, be sure to join your peers in their new UpFront Program which gives you an added boost of visibility and transparency.

For a limited time, TheFind is waiving the annual UpFront service fee for Trust Guard verified merchants, so be sure to join before the critical Holiday shopping season.

Here’s TheFind’s instructions on how it works:

1)      Create an account in our new merchant center: https://merchant.thefind.com/.

2)      Tell us more about your store by filling out the profile questions.  This information will appear on our site with your product listings.

3)      Verify your store by placing the code of TheFind button, badge or link that you would like to display on your homepage and then clicking on verify.  Shoppers will be able to click on the UpFront badge on your site and see a pop-up with the same information that appears on TheFind.

4)      That’s it!  As long as you leave the UpFront badge up on your site, you’re a member of the program and you’ll receive all of the benefits (including increased visibility on our site) that come with it!

If you can’t place the UpFront badge or text link on your homepage right now, you should still log in and tell TheFind’s database more about your site – the more information they have about your store, the more relevant your results will be in the search algorithm and the easier it will be for you to connect with the millions of shoppers who visit TheFind website every month.

To learn more, go to: https://merchant.thefind.com and http://www.thefind.com/upfront.

To See How Trust Guard Is Integrated Into TheFind…

Simply visit an example store at:

http://www.thefind.com/search?query=store%3Aair-tites

You will need to drag your mouse over any tile and when the popup opens, click on the ABOUT STORE tab to see information about the retailer that is a verified Trust Guard Member.

Here is the quote from Neil Parmar at SmartMoney.com Magazine:

With more than 70 retailers and payment processors since 2006 reporting breached customer data, it’s no surprise consumers look for certified safety seals like VeriSign and Trust Guard on retail Web sites.

In the article, author Neil Parmar writes about the rise in identity theft and offers different measures consumers can take to protect themselves from breaches in consumer data. Parmar writes about a few ways to safeguard credit card information when shopping on the Internet. He suggests that consumers look for a certified safety seal, like the Trust Guard seal, before making a purchase online.

The article suggests that consumers need to take preventative measures against the rise in identity theft and consumer fraud in recent years due, in part, to the current economy.

The Wall Street Journal owns SmartMoney Magazine and SmartMoney.com. The goal of the magazine is to present ways to save, invest, and spend money. According to the publication’s mission, they “stress consumer service with action-oriented information.” The magazine itself has won three Pulitzer Prizes and three National Magazine Awards. Forbes Magazine has on multiple occasions named SmartMoney.com “Best of the Web.”

The 2009 holiday season is rapidly approaching and consumers need to be more careful and exercise caution when making online purchases. Trust Guard is an ideal solution for websites looking to confirm that they are reputable destinations where consumers can feel safe making a purchase.

Now more than ever it is time that you as a small business owner take control of your business and give the consumers what they want, which is security, privacy, and reliability. With Trust Guard you have this opportunity. Don’t wait any longer Get Trust Guard Today!

This may sound funny, but every time I sit down to write a blog post I have this overwhelming urge to start it out with “we’ve done it again!” Why? Because almost every time, it seems like we’re either launching an amazing new product, or upgrading our existing products to make them better. These new products and upgrades are always focused toward helping you to improve your online trust and credibility, which in turn helps you make more sales.

This week, we definitely don’t disappoint. We’re happy to announce the launch of our brand new PCI Scanning Security Video seals! As you know, for nearly a year now, we’ve been providing our clients with state-of-the-art streaming security video seals. So, it just made sense for us to create a new, advanced PCI Scanning video seal to go along with the advanced security and peace of mind that PCI Scanning brings.

Take a look at the video by pressing the play button:

If you currently have one of our daily or quarterly PCI Scanning multi-seal packages, or if you have PCI Scanning in conjunction with the security video option in your control panel, then you automatically get the new PCI Security video seal for free! (That’s just the way we roll.)

You can easily find out if you have the new PCI Scanning video seal option. Simply log into your member control panel at secure.trust-guard.com, and click on ‘Get Code’. If you have PCI Scanning, and the video seal shows up on the page, you have it. It you don’t see a video seal, then it’s easy to upgrade. Simply call (877) 848-2731 ext. 2 or email us at support@trust-guard.com and one of our friendly staff can assist you.

How do I update the video on my site?

If you currently have PCI Scanning and have the original security video on your site, then you don’t have to do anything. It has automatically been updated for you.

If you have the video seal option in your control panel, but haven’t added the video seal to your website, then the copy and paste instructions are found in your control panel.

We recommend placing the video seal one-time on the final checkout page of your website for maximum results.

What else do we have up our sleeves?

We’ve working behind the scenes on something BIG! Very big! It’s called Shopper Verified and it’s just about ready to launch. This new service is going to take your trust, credibility, and conversion to incredible new heights, so stay tuned!

Till next time,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard