To address a crisis effectively, it is important to ensure that the communication and notification relating to it is conveyed via the right channels before incorrect information begins to spread. When a breach occurs, security teams need to first identify the cause, data exposed, compromised assets, and impact incurred. All of this information needs to be disseminated in the form of crisis communication and notification.
What is Crisis Communication?
Crisis communication involves the management and dissemination of information in the event of a crisis. It involves systems, protocols, and technologies that enable an organization to successfully communicate with relevant personnel and audience during a risk or threat situation. Being prepared beforehand allows organizations to effectively and quickly communicate with the relevant audience in the time of a cyber crisis. Sharing information with the right people allows an organization to quickly resolve the crisis, protect employees, customers, and assets, as well as maintain business continuity.
What is Crisis Notification?
Crisis notification is the process of sending a quick alert to only those employees or ISAC/ISAO members who are needed in the event of an emergency, such as a major vulnerability revelation or systemic malware outbreak. This can be done by alerting employees via real-time notifications and conducting conference calls for incident response.
As a part of cybersecurity measures, it is important to ensure that the sent notifications are relevant to people. It is not necessary for everyone to receive every crisis notification during an emergency as the time taken to respond will increase if every employee is flooded with immaterial information. Theoretically, your system should be capable of targeting particular individuals and teams to ensure that the most critical information reaches significant people.
Significance of Crisis Communication and Notification
Cyber threats continue to grow in number and severity, affecting many organizations across all industries. Companies must be prepared to respond quickly to crises that arise online. To help manage these challenges, companies need to maintain a high level of communication between their staff, customers, first responders and government officials. Crisis communication should occur in real time so that employees can stay informed of the situation as it develops and make decisions accordingly.
In the event of a crisis, it is important to make sure that your employees have access to the information they need. When employees are away from their desks or office location, emails and manual phone tree systems prove ineffective for crisis communications. In such cases, leveraging a mobile-enabled information sharing platform allows you to receive threat alerting and any other crisis notification based on your location and improve your security situational awareness. This allows organizations to strengthen their defense by providing real-time crisis notification.
Conclusion
Crisis management teams can use a range of tools to keep employees, customers, and relevant audiences informed in real time about any cyber crisis. These tools are useful for coordinating emergency response and minimizing lost productivity during a crisis. Also, organizations must have a crisis management plan ready so they quickly respond to cyberattacks, communicate with stakeholders, and take prompt actions.