With cyber attacks on the rise, is your business comms-ready?

With cyber attacks on the rise, is your business comms-ready?

We’ve all seen the headlines, LinkedIn posts and comms analysis off the back of the cyber attacks some of the UK’s household brands have experienced over the last couple of weeks.

M&S suffered a business-wide online attack that brought systems down, resulting in a crisis unfolding that is estimated to be costing the high-street giant £3.5m a day.

Co-op and Harrods also suffered similar attacks in the same week, but it’s M&S that has widely received praise from comms professionals for its approach to communicating with customers about the incident and the actions being taken to resolve it.

Cyber attacks are a real and ever-present threat for every kind of business operating today, not just big brands. In fact, 43% of businesses in the UK reported some form of cyber breach in 2024, according to the latest UK Cyber Breaches Report released in April.

Let’s face it, all business leaders hope that a cyber crisis doesn’t happen to them, but if it does, your team needs to be prepared and equipped to respond quickly, to maintain hard earned trust with customers, clients and audiences. At the heart of all of this is well planned communications, both for internal comms with staff and external comms with all audiences, from customers to stakeholders and suppliers.

Having a pre-agreed plan of action is time well spent. We call this a crisis comms strategy, which gets you ahead in the face of an incident when it comes to pre-defining the actions and escalation processes that need to be taken from a communications perspective. Businesses which have a strategy around crisis comms, with workflows and comms templates from emails to media statements in place are the ones who can best navigate potential business interruption, avoid lack of communication resulting in further escalation of the incident and help to protect themselves from reputational damage. Planned, transparent and consistent communications, with an outline approach agreed in advance is what helps brands best navigate even the worst scenarios.

Key things you need in your cyber crisis comms strategy:

Your response plan for every audience (internal and external)

Briefed spokespeople (who will lead the way to maintain trust and authority?)

Comms channel strategy (where will you communicate if your usual channels are down?)

Process and escalation paths (who will be involved at every stage and what is their role?)

Message frameworks aligned to the severity of the incident (let’s stick to brand values here and scenario plan)

Comms templates put in place to support quick responses (pre-approved content that helps you respond with speed and clarity)

At O.agency we have supported businesses across sectors with crisis comms for 20 years, from handling comms around crises as they unfold, to preparing robust strategies that work hard to keep businesses one step ahead when crisis hits, helping to protect brand reputation, build customer trust and drive transparency with all stakeholders.