In an increasingly remote and cloud-based business ecosystem, companies across all industries continue to be targets of ongoing cyberattacks. From hospitals and banks to transportation companies and tech giants, the event of a cyber breach is unfortunately no longer a matter of if, but rather when it will occur.
Having a corporate crisis communication plan on hand is wise, but given the uptick in cyber-related events, it’s important to revisit these crisis playbooks and update sections to reflect the real threats of running a business in 2021 and managing a remote or hybrid workforce.
If you have not developed a crisis communications plan, it’s not too late. It is far better to be proactive and develop these materials now so that, in the event of a crisis, the executive team can refer to a strategic plan with agreed-upon response steps. Response steps offer guidance on how to effectively manage communications when faced with a crisis situation. This guidance includes when the company should share messages, what the context of the messages will be, who will receive those messages, which executives will share the messages and how the message will be sent, aka the communication channel (e.g. email, text alert, etc.).
With that said, a major deterrent of developing a crisis communication plan is the time investment. To help facilitate planning and development, we’ve created a checklist of highly recommended assets. When it comes time to develop a cyber crisis plan or update existing plans with cyber-related responses, the overview, elements needed, and potential time investment will be clear.
After a crisis plan is developed, it is wise to participate in a mock crisis response, where the crisis communications team can walk through the developed plan and test out the flow of the response steps. This practice will also provide the spokespeople with media training and best practices for navigating cyber crisis related questions that journalists would surely ask.
For other helpful crisis communication resources, check out the following articles:
Tags: Advice, Communication Channels, communications plan, Crisis Communication, cyber event, cybersecurity, hack, importance of planning, public relations crisis, response, security, strategic planning Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Crisis Communications, Execution, Media, Planning, PR trends, Strategy, Tech Industry