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Cyber security reliability is becoming a foundational part of many brand’s value offerings, but how incidents are reported matters just as much, according to Dr. Ivano Bongiovanni.
With cyber security incidents such as data breaches and ransomware attacks becoming ever more frequent, individuals and businesses alike are starting to assess a brand’s “track record” as an essential part of customer research.
Dr. Ivano Bongiovanni, AUSCERT’s General Manager, discovered this new trend when he posed a question during a panel discussion as part of the recent Digital as Usual Cyber Security breakfast event.
"Raise your hand if you choose to buy from specific organisations based on their cybersecurity track record,” Dr. Bongiovanni asked the audience.
The majority of the people in the room raised their hands.
“This clearly signals that cyber security has become a fundamental part of a company’s value proposition – alongside service quality, reliability, and price,” Dr. Bongiovanni said in a statement.
This shift in consumer sentiment is being driven by high-profile, impactful cyber incidents involving otherwise trusted brands such as Latitude Financial and Optus, with a spate of recent healthcare data breaches becoming a particular cause of concern among the community.
That being the case, consumer trust in a brand’s cyber resilience is now “business-critical”.
"It’s no longer a question of if a cyberattack will happen, but when. What matters is how companies communicate their security efforts to customers and, in the event of an incident, how quickly and transparently they respond to mitigate the impact," Dr. Bongiovanni said.
Clear communication matters
Given that cyber attacks are an inevitability in the current threat environment – as all the experts say, it’s a matter of when, not if, a business falls prey to some form of cyber attack – how a business communicates the details and impact of an attack is an important part of building brand trust.
“Besides their reporting obligations, organisations affected by data breaches need to make sure they provide timely information that is reliable and transparent to their stakeholders, including employees, customers, and suppliers,” Dr. Bongiovanni told Cyber Daily.
“Timely communication does not mean rushed communication: it is fundamental to 'get the facts right' and not under-state or over-state the impact of a data breach.”
According to Dr. Bongiovanni, driving communications via a “single, authoritative source” is a vital strategy for clear and concise dissemination of information, and helps prevent confusion and information overlap.
“Crisis communication is one of the first and most important steps in the recovery journey.”
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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