3 Ways That Marketers Can Get Involved In Cybersecurity Management

As part of a series of interviews I’ve conducted to better understand marketing’s role in cybersecurity, I talked with Theresa Payton, former CIO for the White House and current CEO of Fortalice Solutions, a cybersecurity and intelligence consulting firm risk, fraud, and security company that helps businesses and government organizations protect themselves from emerging threats. In a prior article (see here), she articulated why marketers should be involved. Below, she describes the three ways that marketers can get involved in cybersecurity efforts.

The 3 Ways Marketers Can Help

1. Marketers need to help elevate the issue. Protecting the company’s most important asset—often their customers’—needs to be a firm-level and board-level priority. Marketers can help quantify the risk and motivate senior level engagement to proactively plan.
2. Marketers can lead the cross-functional effort designed to protect the company. They tend to be good at navigating cross-functional teams, asking the right questions, and designing solutions that protect customers and the brand.
3. Third, they can reinforce how normal human behavior can get in the way of the “perfect system.” When the security system requires individuals to only use their computers at work, for example (and not their phones), marketers know that employees won’t comply. The system is inconsistent with human behavior. Marketers need to be the advocate for a security system that can work because employees are willing and able to comply.

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