Enemies & Friends: A Hacker Guide

Often, marketers are called upon to explain the mysterious and (sometimes) sexy world of hackers. This usually comes on the heels of a cyberattack of some sort, where the marketer has to translate the technical details of what happened into something that can be understood and consumed by larger audiences.
For marketers like myself who work in the cybersecurity world, we know that our explanations of the tools, techniques, and overall behavior of developers, hackers, and other technical experts are often just good enough to explain clearly without invoking too much scorn from the experts. Almost everything in marketing is a simplification of reality; and almost everything in actual hacking is exceptionally detailed and often complex (great programmers admire elegant solutions to problems, but the typical hack is not particularly elegant).
Now, as I have stated in the past, you are going to get hacked. You actually likely already have been hacked, but may not even know it, so it is better to say that you are going to have to explain what happened to the market sometime soon.
The first thing to remember, and to emphasize frequently, is that you were attacked by criminals. Stealing data is a crime. Extortion (e.g., ransomware) is a crime. Your network being attacked is a crime. The people that perform these acts are criminals and you need to refer to them as such. (Your legal department will be a great partner here, helping you understand what you can and can’t say about an incident at each step. My advice is not legal advice and you should always trust the attorneys when it comes to discussing cybersecurity incidents.)
Likewise, start differentiating between the different types of hackers out there. Hacking itself is not a crime and is not even a bad thing — it is a time honored tradition among programmers. The cybersecurity community often uses the terms “White Hat” and “Black Hat” to distinguish between good hackers and bad hackers. I personally prefer the terms “Malicious Hacker” or “Criminal Hacker” to refer to the criminals, especially in the context of an attack.
Now, instead of saying “Hackers attacked our network” you can say “Malicious hackers criminally attacked our network.” Call a crime a crime and a criminal a criminal. You may also bring in some White Hat hackers to help determine what happened or help secure your company against future attacks, so make sure you are referring to them in a positive light.
One final thing, please don’t assume these hackers (good or bad) are male. Gender bias in general should be avoided, and certainly here it is unfair to use a broad brush and label them all male. Criminals come in many forms, either gender, any country, any age, etc. Keep your language on point and deliver the facts as you know them and label the bad actors appropriately.
