Stop The Cybersecurity Fear Mongering
The Cybersecurity Industry is better than this.
As Cybersecurity professional I take pride in helping organizations with their security needs. I joined this industry because I knew my expertise would allow me to make an impact. The industry itself has evolved, but fear mongering tactics are becoming common place especially when it comes to marketing.
Today, while browsing a few of my favorite sites I saw this ad come up:
The ad itself wouldn’t of bothered me if the quote at the top of it didn’t exist.
“60% OF SMALL BUSINESS THAT ARE CYBER ATTACKED FAIL!”
The ad itself is for an event called Cyberhub Summit 2017. It is advertised as the first international cyber security conference in the USA. To be honest I am not sure what that means, as there have been a number of international security conferences held in the United States. One that comes to mind is Black Hat, but that’s not what I am concerned with.
Let’s back track a little bit here. I am concerned with the quote. This quote implies that 60% of small business that are cyber attacked fail. Why does this quote sound like it was written by the same individuals who published the 1989 arcade video game Zero Wing?
From the looks of the speakers and the sponsors it is obvious that this event has some big money behind it. I am at a loss for words that they would associate themselves with such brazen marketing tactics and I am also at a loss for words that Robert Herjavec would let his picture, let alone name be associated with such fear mongering.
The ad itself comes off very cheap and tacky. The quote itself at the top of the ad has a major grammatical error. It should read small businesses not small business. It is obvious that this banner was made to drive traffic to the event site. It is also obvious that the banner is meant to instill fear into small business owners. As if small business owners didn’t have enough to worry about.
If it weren’t for the event riding the coat tails of Robert Herjavec I could see many people being completely repulsed by the wording in the banner. These fear mongering tactics have been embraced by those chasing the cybersecurity bottom line. It’s obvious that this event wants you to fork over the green dollars promising something that you’ve probably seen before.
But again, I am getting ahead of myself. What inspired me to publish this article was the quote in it and nothing more. Since that is the case I decided to search Google with the exact wording of the quote. This is when I ran into a very informative article which questioned the origin of the quote.
Title: 60% of Hacked Small Businesses Fail. How Reliable Is That Stat?
Link: https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/blogs/60-hacked-small-businesses-fail-how-reliable-that-stat-p-2464
The article goes into detail that the quote was originally published by the NCSA (Nation Cyber Security Alliance). The NCSA executive director, Michael Kaiser, stated that the original source of the statistic cannot be confirmed. This is pretty alarming if you ask me. Quotes which include statistics that have no origin shouldn’t be used in marketing campaigns.
In conclusion, there is no way to prove that this quote is even accurate. Forget that the quote in the ad has a grammar issue. Forget that the banner includes a picture of Robert Herjavec, someone the global audience has grown to know and trust through his presence on Shark Tank. The quote in the ad really should be removed because there is no proof that this statistic being thrown around is actually accurate.
I’m not sure who signed off on the quote, but it definitely should be double-checked by the Senior Advisor of Strategic Marketing. :-)
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After writing this entry I found yet another ad with the same quote:
Something tells me there might be more out there…
