What is Crisis Communications?

Cybersecurity threats are inevitable, and organizations of all sizes are potential targets. When a cyber breach occurs, the ensuing chaos can rattle even the most prepared businesses, disrupting operations and undermining trust. This is where crisis communications come into play; a crisis communications plan is essential for maintaining stakeholder trust in the face of a cyberattack.

Crisis communications in cybersecurity refers to the structured, internal and external communication processes that a company initiates in response to a data breach or cyber incident. These actions are designed to offer transparency where appropriate, convey understanding of the potential impact to affected parties, and explain the actions the company is taking to mitigate or remediate any negative impacts.

In this article, we dive into the intricacies of crisis communications in the context of cyberattacks, allowing you to fully comprehend its role, importance, and how to effectively utilize it to navigate through a cyber incident and emerge through the other side with your stakeholders’ trust intact.

Understanding the Basis of Crisis Communications

Crisis communications in cybersecurity differs significantly from standard corporate communications. Unlike standard corporate communications, which maintain the business's everyday flow, crisis communication swings into action when a cyber threat occurs. It involves circulating clear, concise, and timely information during a critical situation to maintain transparency and stakeholder trust.

Crisis communications include all planning, holding statements, retained communication agencies and coaches, representative media training, content approval and dissemination, including legal review and approval. Effective crisis communication can mitigate damage, uphold your company reputation, and maintain business continuity.

It’s important to note that a poorly handled cyber crisis can quickly escalate. For example, delays in communication or unclear messaging have historically led to significant reputational damage for companies across industries. By understanding what’s at stake and preparing your communication processes, you can turn a crisis into an opportunity to reinforce trust.

The Role of Security Leaders in Crisis Communication

Security leaders and practitioners are the lifeline during a cyber crisis, charged with protecting organizational assets while communicating developments effectively to stakeholders. They act as a bridge, translating technical jargon into a language all stakeholders can comprehend and act on, while implementing measures to maintain trust and confidence throughout the crisis.

Why Are Crisis Communications Important in Cybersecurity?

When dealing with cyber incidents, crisis communications are crucial as they help organizations minimize the effects of a breach or attack, reassure users and customers, aid in the recovery process, and safeguard against reputational damage and loss of trust. Specifically, crisis communications help:

Uphold Your Reputation: During a cyber crisis, mismanaged information can damage your reputation, which can take years, if not decades, to rebuild. For instance, failure to communicate promptly can result in customer churn or legal consequences. Effective crisis communications ensure that your business’ response actions are portrayed accurately, quickly, and respectfully.

Maintain Stakeholder Trust: Trust is fragile during a cyber crisis. Transparent, consistent and timely communication of what your organization is doing to resolve the situation helps retain stakeholder confidence. In the aftermath of a breach, transparency about your actions can prevent lasting damage.

Ensure Business Continuity: A well-handled crisis communication process could mean the difference between business continuity and operational paralysis. By actively addressing the situation, your business can minimize interruptions and focus on problem-solving, ultimately leading to faster recovery.

Preempt Misinformation: Lack of official information can lead to speculation, rumors, and misinformation, which can exacerbate the situation. For example, speculations on social media can spiral out of control if not addressed immediately. Prompt cyber crisis communications can help stop misinformation from spreading.

Adhere to Legal Requirements: Certain industries, like finance or healthcare, are required to disclose data breaches within specific timeframes to avoid penalties. Communicating the right information following a breach or crisis helps these organizations comply with compliance and other regulatory frameworks, especially when handling sensitive data.

Components of Effective Crisis Communications

Transparent, honest, proactive and consistent communication helps contain the narrative when dealing with a breach situation. The most effective crisis communications rely on these core principles:

Transparency and Honesty: Acknowledging the problem early and offering clear, honest updates helps mitigate concerns. Organizations that fail to disclose a breach or delay in communication often face reputational and regulatory consequences.

Timeliness and Speed: The faster you respond, the better you control the narrative. Rapid response helps control the narrative and stop misinformation from spreading.

Consistency: Regular updates that convey a consistent message are essential for maintaining trust. Mixed messaging can cause confusion or erode confidence.

Proactive versus Reactive Communication: Anticipating potential issues and having “holding statements” prepared ensures your team is ready to respond preemptively. Being proactive helps alleviate uncertainty and prevents issues from escalating.

How to Build and Implement a Crisis Communications Plan

Preparedness is key for crisis communication, and a well-implemented plan can make the difference between a minor mishap and a major disruption.

An effective crisis communications plan involves detailing how to respond when a cyber threat occurs. Ideally, this should include key spokespersons for PR/media inquiries, predefined communication channels, stakeholder identification, and planned responses that can be adapted to your specific situation.

Here are some key steps you need to take when implementing your cyber crisis communication plan:

Understand Your Potential Risks: Conduct a cyber risk assessment to help understand the types of crises your business could face (e.g., data breaches, ransomware attacks) so you know how to prioritize your communication efforts.

Define Your Team and Roles: Designate a crisis communications team, covering essential roles such as a spokesperson, a technician who understands the technical aspect of the crisis, and a coordinator who manages the flow of communication. Everyone on the team should know their tasks and responsibilities clearly to avoid confusion during a crisis.

Identify Your Stakeholders: Determine the people you will need to communicate with during a crisis, such as employees, customers, partners, regulatory bodies, and the press. Segmenting these stakeholders will help you craft targeted messages.

Establish Communication Channels: Define the communication channels (i.e., press releases, emails, social media, and/or phone calls) you will use to share information during a crisis. Make sure you prioritize channels where your stakeholders are already active.

Create Templates: Prepare communication templates tailored for different scenarios and stakeholders. Having pre-drafted messages means you can act swiftly and consistently when a crisis happens.

Conduct Regular Drills: Run regular cyber crisis communication drills to ensure everyone knows what to do when a real crisis hits. These simulations will help you identify any weaknesses in your plan so you can make any appropriate improvements before a real incident occurs.

Update Your Plan Regularly: As the company grows and the business landscape changes, new types of crises can emerge. So, make sure your crisis communication plan is updated regularly and can evolve with your business. Review and adapt your strategy accordingly to keep it relevant.

Post-Crisis Analysis: After a crisis, analyze what went well, where you faced challenges, and how you can improve your crisis communication plan. This is crucial to improve your processes and prepare for future cyber crises.

The Future of Crisis Communication

Crisis communications will continue to evolve with the cybersecurity landscape. With advancements in AI-powered communication tools, the future will likely involve more automated and proactive crisis communication. AI tools can help monitor sentiment in real time and send timely updates to stakeholders, further reducing response time during a breach.

Additionally, the increasing prevalence of remote work adds new layers of complexity to crisis communication, requiring more flexible and scalable solutions. However, no matter the tools or technologies used, the core principles of transparency, timeliness, and consistency will remain central to crisis communication strategies.

How eSentire Helps with Crisis Communications

Crisis communication is an integral part of your organization's cyber defense strategy to ensure business continuity, uphold your reputation, and above all, maintain the trust of stakeholders.

eSentire’s Incident Response and Digital Forensics services can help your business by supporting your incident response lifecycle end-to-end, prioritizing rapid deployment to stop an attack, threat eradication, root cause analysis and security enhancements to eliminate the chance for recurrence.

In addition to determining the true extent of a breach, eSentire’s Cyber Security Investigations team can support in satisfying reporting obligations, transitioning findings to law enforcement, implementing lessons learned and providing guidance through crisis communications.

Contact us to learn more or to explore our DFIR service options.