"Not long ago, hackers claimed to have stolen nearly 19 million customer records from TalkTalk. Within hours, that number appeared in headlines across the U.K. and beyond. The problem was that it was not true. TalkTalk later pushed back, calling the claim "wholly inaccurate" and "very significantly overstated." But by then, the damage was done. Customers, regulators, and journalists had already absorbed the hacker's story as fact, and TalkTalk's correction barely registered in comparison."
"This paradox has become one of the defining features of modern cyber incidents: stakeholders instinctively trust hackers before they trust the companies under attack. It sounds absurd. Why should anyone believe the word of criminals? Yet time and again, we see adversaries set the narrative while companies are left scrambling to catch up. At its core, this is not only a technical problem. It is a communications failure, and it has opened a widening trust gap that security leaders and communicators alike need to address."
Hackers' claims frequently become the dominant narrative in the immediate aftermath of breaches, as specificity and bold assertions confer credibility. Corporate responses that emphasize investigation and lack of operational impact are often read as evasive, allowing adversaries to shape public perception. High-profile examples include disputed claims about large-scale data theft and vendor-related exposures of employee information. The core issue is not solely technical; ineffective crisis communications widen a trust gap between stakeholders and compromised organizations. Security leaders and communicators must prioritize clearer, faster, and more credible messaging to prevent attackers from controlling incident narratives.
Read at Securitymagazine
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