SURVIVING A CRISIS A VIEW FROM THE TRENCHES by Stuart Corner
BIRTH AND DEATH OF A CRISIS—AND THE BITS IN BETWEEN
but not so often that everyone gets fatigued and
If you’re in the throes of a cybersecurity crisis, you’d
Friday night.”
certainly be aware of it. But pinpointing the start of
Nor, he says, is the endpoint of a crisis always clear,
a crisis and, just as important, the end of it, is not so
and failure to recognise this can also have serious
easy, according to Eric Pinkerton, aka ‘Pinky’.
consequences. “I’ve been in crisis situations that have
For his presentation at AusCERT2021, he was
dragged on for weeks and weeks because nobody
jaded by getting constant phone calls at 2am on a
introduced as “Eric Pinkerton from Trustwave.” His
wanted to make the call that it was over.
LinkedIn profile is rather more colourful. “Eric of
“It proved very costly for the organisation to have
House Trustwave, Breaker of blockchain, King of the
people sitting around, not just financially, but in terms
memes, Lord of the Files, Counter of Monte Carlo,
of having very senior people constantly checking in
Raider of the lost Archives, Father of PAE-PAL-PFU,
on meetings. They can’t go and do what they normally
Douser of trash fires, Speaker of unpleasant truths.”
would be doing. They’re very senior executive people.
And there were unpleasant truths aplenty in his
So that has an impact on the organisation.”
presentation. On identifying the start of a crisis, and ”You don’t want to rely on Jerry on the help desk
NK, YK,TK, EK: THE FOUR PHASES OF A CRISIS
having a funny feeling about this. Because if Jerry
Pinkerton identified four phases to a crisis: NK, YK,TK,
isn’t working on that particular day, someone else
EK. “Nobody knows, you know, they know, everybody
might look at it more subjectively. You want to try to
knows. … Number three, ‘they know’, is where you
nail down the point at which the crisis management
have to go and talk to the people affected, or your
team has to be convened. You want that to happen
partners, or a wider circle. Step four, ‘everybody
as soon as it’s possible to say, ‘this is a serious thing,’
knows’, is when you have journalists phoning you for
triggering a crisis management plan, Pinkerton said:
a comment. That is what you’re trying to avoid.”
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