As the chief executive of a company that provides website development services for businesses, David Brown often warns people of the dangers of cyberattacks.
“It’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen. It’s when,” Brown said Friday during an interview at TPC Sawgrass.
So despite taking every precaution, it was not a shock when Brown’s company, Web.com Group Inc., discovered a breach of its own computer systems last month that exposed credit-card information for about 93,000 of its 3.3 million customers.
“It was a very unfortunate situation,” Brown said, but it could have been worse.
“In this particular case, we actually caught the breach while it was happening,” he said.
That minimized the potential damage, but Web.com took precautions anyway to help customers who may have been affected, including offering one year of credit-monitoring protection.
Brown said Web.com has spent “tens of millions” of dollars on Internet security, but no company is completely invulnerable to an attack.
“The whole cybersecurity world has been amped up dramatically over the past few years,” he said.
Brown said Web.com experienced a “minimal” loss of customers because of the breach, and it will be immaterial to the company’s finances.
Brown was at TPC Sawgrass for a news conference for the upcoming Web.com Tour Championship, which will be played Oct. 1-4 at Dye’s Valley Course at the golf club.
Web.com became the primary sponsor three years ago of the secondary golf tour for players who aspire to qualify for the main PGA Tour.
The event in Ponte Vedra Beach is the last of a four-tournament final for the Web.com Tour. The top 25 players in the finals will qualify for the main PGA Tour next year.
“They’re playing for their dreams. All of the players want to play on the PGA Tour,” said Bill Calfee, president of the Web.com Tour.
Tournament officials said the quality of play on the Web.com Tour is strong, with many players moving on to great success on the main tour.
“The Web.com Tour is certainly not minor league,” Calfee said. “This is the path to the PGA Tour.”
Besides the golf tournament, Web.com also reaches out to the business communities in the cities hosting the tournament, holding seminars to help small businesses improve their Internet presence.
“We create a week of great community impact,” Brown said.
The company’s sponsorship of the golf tour has been successful in putting Web.com on the map, Brown said.
“I think we had zero percent awareness in the United States among consumers” when Web.com first put its name on the tour, he said.
A year later, it was 30 percent, and the Web.com Tour’s connection to other golf tours in China and Latin America has also increased the company’s international profile, Brown said.
“It’s created significant awareness of this little tiny company in Jacksonville, Fla., that nobody knew a few years ago,” he said.