Comm100 Live Chat is an online

web chat Online chat is any direct text-, audio- or video-based (webcams), one-on-one or one-to-many ( group) chat (formally also known as synchronous conferencing), using tools such as instant messengers, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), talkers and possib ...

software offered via the SaaS (

Software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

) business model. It is used by companies to centrally manage inquiries and support for customers on various platforms, utilizing live chat and AI-assisted responses to interact with the end-user.

History

The first version of Comm100 Live Chat was released on August 5, 2009. In October 2011, Comm100 Live Chat was featured in Apps of the Month on

TechRepublic TechRepublic is an online trade publication and social community for IT professionals, providing advice on best practices and tools for the needs of IT decision-makers. It was founded in 1997 in Louisville, Kentucky, by Tom Cottingham and Kim S ...

by Scott Lowe. The company had 200,000 registered business users in October, 2012. In January 2013, Comm100 Live Chat released version 7.0 which features Salesforce integration and a redesigned operator console. In the same month, Comm100 Live Chat was ranked top 3 in the "2013 Best Enterprise Chat Software" category on Top Ten Reviews. During the March 2013 upgrade of the live chat software, zero downtime was made available.

Malware infection

In 2022, the Comm100 Live Chat

installer Installation (or setup) of a computer program (including device drivers and plugins), is the act of making the program ready for execution. Installation refers to the particular configuration of software or hardware with a view to making it usabl ...

was compromised due to a

supply chain attack A supply chain attack is a cyber-attack that seeks to damage an organization by targeting less secure elements in the supply chain. A supply chain attack can occur in any industry, from the financial sector, oil industry, to a government sector. ...

on Comm100. The software was bundled with a backdoor within its

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

code file which allowed for

arbitrary code execution In computer security, arbitrary code execution (ACE) is an attacker's ability to run any commands or code of the attacker's choice on a target machine or in a target process. An arbitrary code execution vulnerability is a security flaw in softwa ...

by the attacker. Due to the software being signed using a valid digital signature, the vulnerability was not detected by

antivirus software Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name ...

. The

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

was active from approximately September 27 until September 29, when the malicious code was removed in a subsequent update. It is presumed that the attack originated from China, as comments written with

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

were found within the code.

Features

Comm100 Live Chat consists of three features, a

window, an operator console and a control panel. They include a

web-based A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

version that works with different

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

s ( Chrome, IE,

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

Safari A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...

Opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

, etc.) on different

operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

(

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

) while the operator console has a

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

compatible desktop app and apps for

mobile devices A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. Mod ...

(

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

, Android, and

BlackBerry BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of handheld devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry device ...

). Key features of Comm100 Live Chat include: *

Online chat Online chat is any direct text-, audio- or video-based (webcams), one-on-one or one-to-many ( group) chat (formally also known as synchronous conferencing), using tools such as instant messengers, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), talkers and possi ...

: The website visitor and the operator can have an online chat in real time. * Website Traffic Monitoring: The operator can see detailed information about the website visitors, including GEO info, navigation history,

referrer In HTTP, "" (a misspelling of "Referrer") is an optional HTTP header field that identifies the address of the web page (i.e., the URI or IRI) from which the resource has been requested. By checking the referrer, the server providing the new web p ...

, etc. * Auto Chat Invitation Rules: Automated chat invitations can be sent to visitors in a personal way based on predefined rules. * Reports & Analytics: A series of performance reports are available for users to identify areas for improvement.

Integrations

Comm100 Live Chat offers plugins or integrations with the following: *

Customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategic process that organizations use to manage, analyze, and improve their interactions with customers. By leveraging data-driven insights, CRM helps businesses optimize communication, enhance cus ...

software:

Salesforce.com Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and appl ...

Content management systems A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content (content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

WordPress WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...

Joomla Joomla (), also styled Joomla! (with an exclamation mark) and sometimes abbreviated as J!, is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) for publishing web content on websites. Web content applications include discussion forums, p ...

Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide ...

E-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

platforms:

Shopify Shopify Inc., stylized as ''shopify'', headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, operates an e-commerce platform for retail point-of-sale systems that offers payments, marketing, shipping, inventory management, transaction management, and customer eng ...

Magento Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. Magento source code is distributed under the Open Software License. Magento was acquired by Adobe Inc in May 2018 for $1.68 billion. More than 150,000 online stores have been cre ...

Help desk A help desk is a department or person that provides assistance and information, usually for electronic or computer problems. In the mid-1990s, research by Iain Middleton of Robert Gordon University studied the value of an organization's help des ...

solutions:

Zendesk Zendesk, Inc. is an American company that provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) products related to customer support, sales, and other customer communications. The company was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007 and is headquartered in San Fr ...

Web analytics Web analytics is the measurement, data collection, collection, analysis, and reporting of web Data (computing), data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool for ...

tools:

Google Analytics Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and also mobile app traffic and events, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in N ...

References

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