How Not to Handle a Cyberattack: The Worst Crisis Communications Failures
SC Media, Friday, August 29th, 2025
A cyberattack now happens every 11 seconds and chances are, your organization is next. In 2024 alone, more than 3,200 data breaches were publicly reported in the U.S., compromising the information of over 353 million people.
These numbers aren't just staggering, they're a warning: cybersecurity incidents are no longer rare, and silence is no longer an option.
How an organization communicates about a cybersecurity incident can be just as consequential as the incident itself. Mishandling the messaging can erode trust faster than any threat actor could. And yet, time and again, companies continue to fumble the basics of breach response, turning a bad situation into a reputational crisis.