CN&CO to handle crisis communication for Hollard Specialist Liabilities

In October 2015, UK telephony/broadband service provider TalkTalk was hacked. The way the company communicated the breach with its four-million customers is a case study in how not to handle a crisis.

First they shut down their website, citing “technical issues” as the reason. 24 hours later the company released a statement saying it had been attacked, and that customers’ data may have been compromised. What followed was a series of confusing, sometimes contradictory statements about the type of attack the company had suffered, what information had been affected, how many accounts had been compromised, whether or not the data was encrypted, and how customers would be assisted if they suffered any losses as a direct result of the hack.

It took nine days for TalkTalk to get a handle on the nature and scope of the breach. An estimated 100 000 customers fled as a result.

Ryan van de Coolwijk, product manager for cyber liability at Hollard Specialist Liabilities (HSL)

“Any business’s data is vulnerable,” says Ryan van de Coolwijk, product manager for cyber liability at Hollard Specialist Liabilities (HSL). “No matter how many sophisticated security measures you have in place, there’s always the risk that your information could fall into the hands of criminals.

“As smart as the IT security industry is, cybercriminals are equally smart. As the latest methods of crime are combatted, so the criminals invent new ways of getting around them. It’s never-ending cycle.”

Obviously it’s better to have the latest security methods in place, but no network is impervious.

“Many companies either adopt the ‘this-can-never-happen-to-me’ or the ‘we’re-ok-we-have-a-firewall’ approach – and so when it does happen to them, they’re hopelessly unprepared for the fallout.”

But data is not only vulnerable on a computer network. Contrary to commonly-held beliefs, there are many ways data can be compromised.

“Say ‘data compromise’ and people immediately jump to the conclusion that there’s some kind of cyber crime at play,” adds Ryan. “Data can, in fact, be lost in many ways, including network breach (hacking), privacy breach (stealing someone’s password) or theft of paper records, laptops, cell phones or other electronic devices.”

HSL offers comprehensive cover for commercial insurance brokers against data breaches. So if a broker’s clients’ data is compromised, Hollard will help with forensics, data containment and restoration, business interruption, legal advice, PR and a host of other consequential costs faced by a business in this predicament.

CN&CO was recently appointed to handle the PR and client communications under HSL’s commercial data insurance policy.

“Communicating with customers is a key component of the plan when data gets compromised,” says CN&CO’s Gianluca Tucci. “Not only does an organisation have to manage its reputation really carefully, but losing 100 000 subscribers, as TalkTalk did last year, is simply not an option.”

The relationship between an insurance broker and policyholder is founded on trust, which is a very fragile thing. A data hack could completely ruin a relationship.

“OR… it could be turned into a positive,” says Gianluca. “Communication has to 100% on-point and specific for each case. No two instances are alike and so a cookie-cutter approach simply won’t work.”

“Our crisis team has to be on call 24/7,” says Ryan. “Data breaches can happen at any time of day or night, and we need a team that can be ready at a moment’s notice. Given the commitment and experience of the CN&CO team, specifically in the insurance industry, we’re delighted to have them on board as our communications partner.”