As August begins, it seems only right to reflect on the pretty amazing (and record breaking, FYI) June and July that Eskenzi and ESET have achieved. From pushing out ground breaking research to working around the clock during the Petya/ NotPetya attack that crippled the world, it is fair to say we’re pretty pleased with not only the quantity, but quality of the coverage we have accomplished over the last 2 months. Some say summer is about sun and sangria but for us on the ESET account it was all about research and ransomware (a Tech PR’s dream, right!?). But anyway, I digress. Take a look below for some of our highlights.
Industroyer
Before Petya, ESET were already doing pretty well. They had released their ground-breaking Industroyer research and Account Manager Katie worked ridiculously hard to achieve 41 pieces of coverage in 1 week- this included pieces in some of the UKs biggest news outlets like The Guardian, The BBC, IB Times and The Sun. However, not even this could prepare us for what was coming next.
Petya
On the 27th June, the Petya/ NotPetya ransomware infected computer systems worldwide, little more than a month after WannaCry. ESET were quick from the offset, putting all their efforts into researching the constantly developing situation, and thus, we had a constant stream of materials and updates to send out to the journalists who were hungry for details. Katie (fresh back from Glastonbury) and I worked around the clock, sending out media alerts and setting up interviews with the ESET team (from the tube in the morning, might I add) and our efforts did not go without reward.
ESETs Petya research resulted in 60 pieces of coverage across national newspapers and in top tier industry press. In one week, ESET were featured in the Financial Times 4 times! Not to mention the BBC, Reuters and the IB Times!
As the month drew to a close, Petya was far from over and the fallout was still hot news. As we went in to July, we already had a total of 189 pieces of coverage under our belt, and had broken all our own records; could we live up the challenge and do it all again in July? I think so.
With the fallout from Petya still crashing down around the World, it seemed unlikely that ESETs magical June was going to end abruptly. ESET ensured that they stayed ahead of the game- this gave us a helping hand, as the content we had to send out was in demand. It was new, and more often than not, it was breaking news; we had journalists contacting us around the clock for new statistics and updates on the ransomware.
The first week of July went by in a ransomware-ridden blur- by the time we got around to putting together the weekly report we were more than happy. We had achieved 82 pieces of coverage for ESET- 44 pieces of which were in top tier national publications like the FT, the BBC, SC and Wired. This put our grand total of Petya related coverage at 142- over a two-week period!
From this, I am sure you can tell just how busy we have been on the ESET account over the last two months. Our grand total for June and July totals at 350 pieces of coverage and we are very proud to say that a lot of this is in top tier, top quality outlets. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the great team we work closely with at ESET; especially the fab (and kinda famous within the cyber community) Mark James, Security Specialist and spokesman. His quick responses and unbeatable insight into the world of cybersecurity makes our job that little bit easier. We are excited to see what August has in store, and if its anything like the last two months, this is going to be a very good summer for the ESET-Eskenzi partnership!
By Michelle Marriott, Account Exec at Eskenzi PR
