ERA Offers New Service to Help Membership Comply with Privacy Laws

Washington, DC - April 18, 2006 - Today the Electronic Retailing Association (ERA) announced a new partnership with Qualys, a vulnerability management solutions company, to help ERA members avoid customer information breaches and comply with the latest government regulations. Through this service, ERA members will be able to scan their systems for potential vulnerabilities and receive automated reports on their security system’s strengths and weaknesses. ERA entered into this agreement after talking with many members who were concerned about the effect data security breaches might have on their businesses.

“There’s no doubt about it that privacy concerns are at the forefront of many consumers’ minds,” said Barbara Tulipane, ERA’s president and CEO. “We all know that if a customer doesn’t trust the company that they are doing business with, then they probably won’t shop there again. Therefore we wanted to offer our members a service that would help them prove to their customers that they are doing everything in their power to protect sensitive customer data.”

Under this agreement, Qualys enables ERA members to scan their network for potential vulnerabilities and insecurities. The on demand solution alerts merchants to potential problems before they occur and provides remedies to fix them. Under current law, MasterCard and VISA have developed a set of data security standards for the Payment Card Industry (PCI) that dictate what companies must do to secure credit card data. Qualys’ solution meets all these standards and provides audit reports that are accepted by all credit card associations and banks worldwide. Implementing Qualys’ regular audits allows participants to meet requirements set forth by the federal government while ensuring that their systems are well protected against cyber attacks thus increasing consumer confidence amongst the general public.

“ERA represents a significant sector of the retail community, and is the one that deals directly with customers every day,” said Philippe Courtot, Chairman and CEO of Qualys. “Partnering with such an organization means a lot to us and we are very pleased to provide our technology to ERA members to help them improve the security of storing, processing and transmitting cardholder data in order to increase consumer confidence.”

All ERA members are eligible for a free 14-day trial scan to evaluate their systems and their current level of data protection. After the trial period, full service is available at a discounted rate. For more information, visit www.retailing.org.

About the Electronic Retailing Association

The Washington DC-based Electronic Retailing Association is the trade association involved in multi-channel electronic marketing, including infomercials, short-form commercials, live shopping channels, the Internet and radio, representing a $296 billion market.

About Qualys

With more than 2,000 subscribers ranging from small businesses to multinational corporations, Qualys has become the leader in on demand vulnerability management and policy compliance. The company allows security managers to strengthen the security of their networks effectively, conduct automated security audits and ensure compliance with internal policies and external regulations. Qualys’ on demand technology offers customers significant economic advantages, requiring no capital outlay or infrastructure to deploy and manage. Its distributed scanning capabilities and unprecedented scalability make it ideal for large, distributed organizations. Hundreds of large companies have deployed Qualys on a global scale, including AXA, DuPont, Hershey Foods, ICI Ltd, Novartis, Sodexho, Standard Chartered Bank and many others. Qualys is headquartered in Redwood City, California, with European offices in France, Germany and the U.K., and Asian representatives in Japan, Singapore, Australia, Korea and the Republic of China. For more information, please visit www.qualys.com.

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Media Contact:
Tami Casey
Qualys
media@qualys.com