Executive Mistakes After a Data Breach

Dateline: January 12, 2018

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.

We have a long way to go before we can be sure our data and systems are secure.  In the meantime, executives can take some comfort in knowing that many before them have had to made tough decisions to both protect and recover from sever cyber attacks.  Harvard Business Review published an informative blog, Avoidable Mistaked Executives Continue to Make After a Data Breach.  In it, author Bill Bourdon suggests,

Until more top executives begin to hold themselves accountable for cyber incidents, and learn from the mistakes that others have made before them, we will continue to see breaches and poor leadership in the responses to these attacks.

He suggests a few lessons all executives can learn from:

Foot dragging– The longer companies wait to notify their customers, the greater the chance criminals will be able to use stolen data.

Poor Customer Service– Top corporate officers need to make sure their gestures of goodwill align with the severity of the breach, even if they are expensive to implement.

Not Being Transparent– Being open in the aftermath of a breach is the thing executives are in a position to control — but more often than not, they evade the truth. Transparency is a cornerstone to rebuilding trust in the brand.

Failing to Accept Responsibility-A massive breach is not an individual error or a technology failure — it’s an organizational breakdown that is the responsibility of the top executive

How is your executive team going to act should/when a breach happens?  How can you brief/prepare them?

That’s a WRAP!  Have a nice weekend!

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