Meet Adam Palmer, the Internet Security Wizard

Adam Palmer, the owner at SAS Data Services Ltd, is a successful software entrepreneur and internet security wizard who has a finely skilled knack for information security and application development.

Adam knows that personal branding and data privacy can’t go one without the other. Adam is smart, be like Adam.

But let’s see how.

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First of all, you need a good head start. Palmer wouldn’t be as successful as he is now without the experience and technical skills he mustered during his eventful digital marketing career. He comes from a broad business and technical background and his main expertise is solving complex internet security problems, mainly for startups.

The technologies Palmer worked with so far include:

• MongoDB
• Angular
• Voyage
• APIs
• PHP
• FUSE
• Laravel
• NFS/CIFS
• CSS
• RabbitMQ
• Javascript/jQuery
• MySQL
• Postgres
• Python
• Django
• C
• Assembly
• WordPress
• CentOS
• Debian

This is why anyone trying to succeed in the ever-turbulent currents of digital marketing waters must start investing in him or herself, and do it wisely.

This is where having a personalized web page and your own domain come in.

Why Having a (Secured) Personal Website is Paramount for Personal Branding

Today’s digital marketing landscape is oversaturated with brands, startups, and aspiring freelancers, with thousands of new businesses popping up and dying out on a daily basis. It’s like a game of whack-a-mole where the fresh companies are the moles and the competition is the person holding the hammer.

Only the lucky few survive.

But those who manage to emerge victorious know that acquiring new clients is the key to business growth, while the best way to improve your client acquisition strategy is to develop a successful brand of your own. And to do that, you need the basic building block of any brand, and that is – you guessed it – a personal website.

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Your own, personalized platform will be the most potent and most effective visual representation of the product you are creating or the services you are providing. If the eyes are the window to one’s soul, your website is the window to your brand. Yes, we know this sounds a bit like a cliche, but all cliches become cheesy because they are true.

And once you’ve managed to build your own personalized website that will help your brand gain traction, you need to think about internet security.

The Importance of Data Privacy & Cybersecurity

What separates a successful digital marketing company from the myriad of other mediocre ones is data privacy. Especially now when GDPR has shaken the online world and marketing landscape like an earthquake with a huge ripple effect.

And those ripples will reach all of us, sooner or later.

This is why no internet company should take internet security and the privacy of their (or their clients’) data for granted. Especially if you work closely with the data coming from your customers and you store sensitive information on your company server or cloud. In these cases, data protection and cybersecurity MUST be among your top priorities.

You Must Follow Legal Guidelines

Regardless of what type of information your company stores – it can be your payroll, personal data of your employees, sensitive information coming from your clients, or any kind of data that can impact the security and day-to-day work of your coworkers – you must make sure your company’s privacy policy is in compliance with GDPR and that you have followed all the legal guidelines, to the smallest detail, regarding the protection of your and your clients’ data.

GDPR enforcement date was May 25th, 2018, so if your company still hasn’t met all the legal requirements related to this act, you may already be in quite a pickle and you might want to consider hiring an internet security expert.

Data Storing and Protection

The data you are storing or processing is your responsibility. Any kind of a data leak or security breach which compromises the integrity of the data of your clients, partners, or anyone else who chose to entrust you with their information, cannot but reflect badly on you. Even if it isn’t technically your fault. Just imagine how your client would feel if their sensitive personal or financial data was made accessible to people with the means and intent to exploit it.

Even without the recently implemented General Data Protection Regulation, the consequences of your failure to keep in touch with the known vulnerabilities of the CMS can indeed be dire.

Encouraging Safe Work Practices

There isn’t a CMS, utility or plugin out there that can keep you safe if you and your employees are not familiar with data protection best practices. If you didn’t pay too much attention to this so far, the best way to start is by limiting data access to only those employees who absolutely need it.

This reduces the possibility of human error and makes it easier to establish culpability if a breach does happen. Naturally, the few selected people who are authorized to use the data need to be educated on what they can and cannot do.

Most of the time, people considered for such a role will already be tech savvy enough to know, for instance, that public networks shouldn’t be used for transfer of sensitive data; or to know how to recognize phishing; but it is still your duty to assess their level of competence and provide them with all the additional training they might need.

If all these pieces of information sound extremely convoluted and tedious, that means it might be time for you to consult an experienced internet security expert. We know we did.

Testimonials Coming from Palmer’s Clients

But instead of talking further about Palmer’s skills and success, and about why data privacy and internet security are crucial for any marketing company, let’s take a look at some of the testimonials that come directly from his customers:

Julian de Bosdari, Managing Director, Ashridge Trees Limited, said:

“Adam was responsible for the programming of our website www.ashridgetrees.co.uk and of our back office systems. The whole was a six-figure project for which he provided the staff and project management. It should be praise enough to say that “if I had my time over, I would do the same again.” Outstanding and highly recommended.”

Jim Varnon, CEO, Hold’em, Manager, said:

“My firm has used Adam for several projects over the course of the last five years. Adam’s biggest strength lies in his diversity of skills/background and on his customer service. Our work experience with Adam has ranged from large PHP development projects to System Administration management and security over our website(s) and servers. In all cases, Adam has demonstrated a high level of creativity and ingenuity in addressing complicated tasks/problems in an efficient and effective way.”

Joe McCray, Chief Technology Officer at Secure Ninja, said:

“I’ve hired Adam for more projects than I can count. I’ve dropped projects on him with deadlines that were just insane. I had a lot of great experiences having him work for me. Adam and his team have always done top quality work, provided good documentation, and never missed a deadline in the nearly 3 years his company worked for me.”

Wrapping Up

Adam Palmer is a great example of how resourcefulness, talent, and determination can open many a door to promising digital marketing opportunities. If you seek a similar career, make sure you don’t forget to think data privacy and proper personal branding right from the start. Adam didn’t.