Case Study: ValChoice

Company Background

Dan Karr is the founder and CEO of ValChoice.com, a company with a mission to “give every consumer in America a free analysis of their insurance company.” After an awful car accident, Karr was unable to recover almost $100,000 worth of medical expenses from his health and auto insurance companies. As a husband and a father of three, the financial strain put pressure on his entire family. “After that experience, I vowed to prevent this from happening to any other family by leveraging my technology background to bring transparency to the insurance industry,” said Karr. That’s when ValChoice.com was born.

ValChoice.com provides its customers with a detailed, easy-to-understand analysis of the value, protection and services that insurance companies offer. As the company website states, ValChoice.com is “an independent, unbiased and trusted source of information about insurance companies.”

A Proactive Approach

Customers using ValChoice.com often request information from the website, such as custom reports, in order to track how their insurance changes over time. This service allows customers to stay up to date with their policy and determine whether they need to change providers.

In order to receive the most accurate analysis of a current insurance policy, website visitors share personal and confidential information as well as payment data with ValChoice.com. Karr knew his customers willingly provided their confidential information because they trusted his company’s reputation and believed they would be protected from any potential security threat. In order to preserve industry credibility and maintain customer confidence, he had to ensure ValChoice.com, and its customers, were protected from all cyberthreats. “Website security is important to the success of our business. That’s why we called SiteLock.”

SiteLock As A Security Partner

SiteLock reviewed Karr’s website needs and proposed a custom security solution to keep his website protected and available to his clients at all times.

SiteLock recommended the SiteLock_® Enterprise scanning package, which includes SiteLock_® SMART™ (Secure Malware Alert & Removal Tool) to help identify any malicious files and content on ValChoice.com. This daily scanning tool identifies malware and removes it automatically to prevent damage to the website or any potential security risks to visitors. The Enterprise scanning package analyzes an average of 932,790 files per month on ValChoice.com. If and when the scan identifies a potential threat, Karr is notified immediately.

To complement the scanning package, SiteLock provided ValChoice.com with an additional layer of protection from cyberthreats with SiteLock_® TrueShield™ Enterprise Web Application Firewall (WAF). TrueShield includes a content delivery network (CDN); SSL support, protection against the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 threats, backdoor connections, and also meets PCI standards. One of the largest security benefits for Karr is the PCI compliance package. Since ValChoice.com offers paid subscriptions to their custom reports, they must be PCI compliant in order to avoid significant fines and ensure customer information is protected.

Additionally, TrueShield offers many other security measures that enable ValChoice.com to streamline efficiencies and better serve thousands of customers all over the U.S. In the last 90 days TrueShield has blocked 4,000 visitors from blacklisted countries, rejected 95 bad bots, and prevented 37 attempts to access website resources by hackers.

Staying Protected

Once referred to by Forbes magazine as, “Carfax for insurance,” ValChoice.com is positioned for continued successful and growth, and remains an important passion project for Karr. By partnering with SiteLock, he can focus on his business with confidence knowing that his website, and his customers, are protected.

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