CEOs say attacks on corporate reputation are becoming more frequent, apologies from the boss are losing potency and it takes about 3 and half years to recover when your reputation has been trashed.

Just some of the interesting findings from a report Safeguarding Reputation from Weber Shandwick.

According to the report, nine out of 10 executives said reputation risk was on the rise thanks to the convergence of instantaneous news, blogging and globalization. And recovering from an attack can take up to 3.6 years.

The report says CEOs say they don't put much stock in responding to bloggers. It's easy to understand where they are coming from, given the size of the blogosphere and the quality of some of the stuff. But dismissing bloggers would be a big mistake. One of the most famous examples of a company that did not realize was this was Ingersoll-Rand subsidiary Kryptonite. In 2004, bloggers discovered that thieves could pick the popular Kryptonite bicycle locks with Bic Ballpoint Pens and started posting videos of it happening. Kryptonite failed to respond and eventually the mainstream media picked up the story. In the end, Ingersoll-Rand realized it had a problem but that came too late. It had to dish out $10 million for new locks for thousands of customers.

In other words, companies are kidding themselves if they don't take the blogosphere more seriously.