Coming from the newspaper and media industry, I’m no stranger to wanting to write catchy headlines. I’m certainly at fault for throwing together a story about so-and-sos house sold for X million dollars.
But recently I’ve been wondering if those “big numbers” for cybersecurity are helpful at all, even though they might generate clicks to a news organization.
I saw several media outlets had reported on a new estimate from commercial insurance market Lloyd's of London that a cyber attack on any international global payments systems could cost $3.5 trillion globally, hurting many major world economies.
At face value, that seems bad, and it’s a number that’s sure to come up with board rooms or any place decision-makers meet to discuss cybersecurity.
It likely catches the eye of readers at home who are skimming newspaper headlines (if you’re like my dad and one of the last people who still reads physical newspapers).
But what use is actually throwing these types of numbers out there? It reminds me of the discussion around climate change or any other problem that seems larger than life. I tend to not dwell on the worst-case scenario reports that always come out and make headlines because I feel these have a tendency to make people feel defeated — like there is no purpose in trying to make a difference because the problem is so overwhelming that one individual contribution won’t matter anyway, so then we all sit by and do nothing.
If every time there is a major cyber attack, and we shame the targeted company by pointing out how many millions of dollars they lost, it’s just another form of public shaming that I’ve written about before that can lead to a ..
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