Why Marketers Need to Embrace Cyber Security
Your marketing team has huddled together and spent weeks creating a brand-new landing page for the expo . Apart from the money invested, a lot of man-hours from the content, research, and branding to the development team have been utilized. You are happy about the final product and excited to present it Infront of the top management and clients.
Suddenly, you watch irrelevant popups being displayed in the website. You watch in horror as your clients browse through the compromised landing page. You receive a call from the performance marketing manager saying that all the ads are disapproved since the landing page doesn’t satisfy the ad rules. The customer success team notifies that there has been a data breach and the existing clients are being spammed with emails and calls.
Isn’t this every marketer’s nightmare?
Post-pandemic internet era has seen a surge in online behaviour, which led to capturing three times more data and joyous celebrations amongst marketers globally. What was expected to be a goldmine for marketers has turned out to be the worst nightmare.
Cyber-attacks have increased by 151% and organizations face 270 cyber-attacks on an average per year.
The one department that is on the firing side is “Team Marketing”. If you don’t realize the magnitude of the damage caused, let us elaborate on what’s at stake for the marketers –
Social Accounts being compromised
Every organization has got an online presence on social media. Irrespective of the number of channels that they are in, be it LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, they use it s as a channel to communicate with their global audience. A lot of efforts go into developing the social media channel strategy from the marketing team. Now with all the efforts around the channel of communication, the entire operation would crumble down if their accounts get compromised.
PR Crisis
One data breach is enough to bring the whole image of the organisation crumbling down.
According to Forbes The Reputational Impact of IT Risk report, 46% of organizations had suffered damage to their reputations and brand value as a result of a breach. Another 19% of organizations suffered reputational and brand damage as a result of a third-party security breach or IT system failure.’
Data Leak
What’s unpredictable about the data leak is that, once it’s happened, it is difficult to know which part of the data was accessed. The hackers can possibly use customer data, trade secrets, and any other confidential data for either spying or selling it to 3rd party data aggregators. This will cause a loss of trust amongst the prospects and the existing customer base.
So, What Can marketers Do to Reduce the Chances of Being Subjected to Cyber-Attacks?
1. Satisfy the regulators
Make sure you are using the appropriate data rules (GDPR) and that security compliance is satisfied. To comply with the GDPR, marketers must know what information you gather, why and how you utilise it, and how long you plan to retain it. Whenever possible, get explicit, active consent before collecting data and give the opportunity to agree to some processing while disagreeing to others.
2. Enforce organization wide password policy
An efficient password policy is a set of guidelines for creating passwords that guard against data theft. Be sure to specify which systems the policies apply to and to detail how the strategy will be carried out. Make sure that password policies are routinely updated, maintained, and evaluated.
3. Educate on phishing
Make sure everyone in the firm receives security training, especially in phishing attack detection. Everyone should be aware of the best practises for protecting their systems and what to do in the case of an attack.
4. Equip cyber-security for remote workforce
The bulk of workforces are working remotely post pandemic. Equip your remote workforce to update and secure devices often. When doing so, make sure that your marketing staff is cautious about protecting important data when sharing communal or shared living places and only utilises a reputable, secure WIFI.
Way forward
With new digital initiatives taking the front seat in driving organisational innovation, marketers should help voice out their organisation’s commitment to protecting data and communications.
Although security and marketing are two different departments, rather than working as silos, they should work together in tandem to build brand trust and equity. ,It only takes one successful cyber-attack to bring all the efforts of marketing crumbling down.