MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Managing Crisis Communications in the Cloud Era

Data breaches are inevitable, but planning for a breach can minimize the damage to consumer trust.

Data breaches are on the rise and can prove incredibly costly to a business. A study by IBM and the Ponemon Institute, which focuses on data privacy, found that a data breach costs a U.S. company an average of $8.2 million (and costs companies worldwide about half that amount). The biggest factor is lost customer trust.

While businesses are moving their IT operations to the cloud at a faster pace than ever, the cloud is still subject to security concerns. Working in crisis communications, I’ve seen numerous high-profile corporations through breaches and attacks by hackers and internal bad actors. Looking to contain reputational damage, they may try to limit what people find out, quickly place blame on the cloud service provider, or both.