The Internet today is a crooked and distorted mirror reflecting the activities of both people and organizations. Despite the fact that there is a significant amount of unreliable information on the Internet, people still frequently form their opinions about a person or situation on the basis of the information found on the Web. For this reason, a person who seeks to have a high degree of credibility for his or her activities needs to pay special attention to a key tool for gaining credibility:online reputation.
The problem most businessmen face with online reputational issues is precisely the lack of trust. Today any financial or banking organization, before starting a long-term or partnership relationship, will use the KYC process. Of course, there are many different configurations of this procedure, but one way or another, the online reputation of the future partner will be studied in detail. If there is any information that is not conducive to a higher degree of trust, then cooperation will be refused.
The methodology developed by the Information Security Institute is an integral part of the overall business reputation management system and allows decision-makers to create conditions to minimize possible obstacles. The methodology involves the application of a matrix of invulnerability with 16 elements, as well as dozens of applications, indicators, and qualifiers necessary to build, protect, or restore business reputation, which together provide an instrumental approach to business reputation management in any situation.
This methodology was developed on the basis of research conducted during a research expedition to Portugal in 2020. Thanks to the comprehensive research led by the scientific director of the Information Security Institute, Dr. Oleg Maltsev, the library of the Institute was enriched with a new limited-access textbook, “Business Security in the 21st Century”. According to one of the conclusions of this textbook, business reputation is a priority target for both attack and defense. Attackers who intend not only to damage a business’s reputation, but also to stop or completely shut down an organization’s operations, attack the reputation of the owner as the first step in achieving that goal.
The methodology of online reputation management used by the Information Security Institute allows beneficiaries not only to create a personal brand, but also to build a reputation in their social network in a way that will both increase the cost of attempts to attack their reputation, and produce a manifold increase in the resource intensity necessary for such attempts. This will deter the majority of reputational attacks. According to the Institute’s reports, 80% of those who want to attack a target’s reputation will abandon these plans at the preparation stage because of the need to invest significant financial and human resources.
The implementation of such an approach has been made possible by the use of methods of analysis developed by Dr. Grigory Popov and Dr. Alexei Yakovlev, who have adopted scientific approach at the interface of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, criminology, philosophy, social psychology, and political science.