April 17, 2019 – New York, NY – The Global Cyber Alliance announced that it has been named to the Internet Society’s latest Online Trust Alliance (OTA) Audit and Honor Roll. The Audit and Honor Roll is the de facto standard for recognizing website excellence in consumer protection, security, and responsible privacy practices for the world’s top companies.
“The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) is pleased to once again be included on the OTA’s Honor Roll. Shining a light on privacy and security practices encourages us to take stock of where we are and what we can do better,” said Shehzad Mirza, Global Cyber Alliance Director of Operations. “At GCA, security and privacy are foremost to our mission. We take seriously our own practices and want others to do the same so we build more trust and confidence in our digital world.”
Over the past three years GCA has been an ardent champion of DMARC, an email authentication protocol, encouraging global adoption and delivering resources to make implementation easier. GCA was also the organization behind the development of the secure DNS service Quad9 (in collaboration with IBM and Packet Clearing House), now an independent organization. Earlier this year GCA launched the GCA Cybersecurity Toolkit for Small Business, an online collection of free tools geared towards small and medium-sized businesses to give them operational tools and guidance to shore up their cyber defenses.
As the only comprehensive, independent online trust benchmark study, the OTA Online Trust Audit evaluates websites in three main categories: domain, brand and consumer protection; site, server and infrastructure security; and privacy, transparency and disclosures. Based on a composite weighted analysis, sites that scored 80 percent or better overall, without failing in any one category, received the honor roll designation (read the entire methodology here).
“In this age where many companies are accused of putting profits ahead of customers, the websites that made the Honor Roll should be commended for their commitment to online trust,” said Jeff Wilbur, Technical Director of the Online Trust Alliance initiative at the Internet Society. “This designation shows that you can be one of the world’s most successful businesses without sacrificing consumer privacy, protection, and security.”
OTA audited more than 1,200 of the top consumer-facing websites spanning banking, consumer services, U.S. government, healthcare, news and media, retail, Internet Service Providers, mobile carriers, email providers, and web hosters. It found that 70 percent of analyzed websites qualified for the honor roll. The Federal government category surged to the front with 91 percent of sites placing on the honor roll. Healthcare, a new sector this year that includes pharmacies, testing labs, insurance companies, and hospital chains, had the lowest overall honor roll placement at 57 percent. More details about the 2018 OTA Online Trust Audit and Honor Roll is at https://otalliance.org/2018HonorRoll.
About OTA
The Internet Society’s Online Trust Alliance (OTA) identifies and promotes security and privacy best practices that build consumer confidence in the Internet. Leading public and private organizations, vendors, researchers, and policymakers contribute to and follow OTA’s guidance to help make online transactions safer and better protect users’ data. The Internet Society is a global nonprofit dedicated to ensuring an open, globally connected, trustworthy, and secure Internet for everyone.
See original article: https://www.globalcyberalliance.org/global-cyber-alliance-makes-the-internet-societys-online-trust-alliance-honor-roll/
