INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightDavid RimmerImage caption
David Rimmer says firms must consider the impact of data breaches on employees
In early September 2017 David Rimmer was on the final day of a corporate get-together in the US, organised by Equifax, the
giant financial firm he worked for.It is one of the world's biggest credit score agencies, and Mr Rimmer was the chief information security
officer (CISO) for Europe.At the conference centre, he and a handful of other staff were called aside by the global chief security officer
"[He] told us 'there's something I need to tell you and you're going to need to be here indefinitely for the next couple of weeks'," Mr
Rimmer explains."In that meeting, where external counsel [lawyers] were also present, some of us were told 'if you tell anyone else about
this, you'll be fired on the spot and walked off-site'." It was then that the significance of the breach and the consequences for him and
the IT security team began to sink in
"The impact of knowing something like that, the scale of what happened and not being able to talk to anyone about it is huge." Immediately
after the breach was discovered, only around 50 people from the 11,000 person company knew about it - just senior members of the information
security team, some senior executives and people involved in the incident response process.Cyber-criminals had accessed customer data such
as social security numbers, birth dates and credit card details
Ultimately the breach affected at least 147 million people in the US, as well as 14 million UK citizens and 100,000 Canadians
The small team held discussions in a war room in Atlanta where they worked alongside outside experts to investigate the incident and put
This added pressure to the 50-person team to resolve issues, while also isolating the group from the rest of the business.Image
copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Immediately after the breach was discovered, only around 50 staff in Equifax knew
about it
"I'm sure everyone in the team felt responsible for what had happened, even though this was actually the result of
years of corporate decision making on budgets and priorities
There was one member of our team who had worked for Equifax for 40 years, so the personal impact was staggering - there were many people sat
at their desks on the verge of tears," Mr Rimmer says
One week after Mr Rimmer and his team found out about the breach, Equifax published a press release detailing a "website application
vulnerability" that malicious hackers had exploited."For the first week there was nobody standing up for the security team, clarifying that
this is a corporate responsibility and it's not down to individual security professionals," he says
The details becoming public had a further demoralising effect on staff, who were criticised on social media and in the press by their peers
and others within the industry."The CISO was attacked for having a music degree even though this was 30 years ago when cyber-security wasn't
A middle manager on the security team was served with lawsuit papers directly, not via Equifax, while another employee had death threats on
social media because he was identified as working for Equifax, so there was a disproportionate personal impact to some of those people who
were singled out," says Mr Rimmer
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Richard Smith stepped down as chief executive of Equifax following the data
breach
But that was not all
Chief executive Richard Smith, chief information officer David Webb and chief security officer Susan Mauldin all stepped down from their
roles, causing further disruption.Russ Ayers took over from Ms Mauldin in an interim role, but while Mr Rimmer praised Mr Ayers for his
leadership qualities, he said that the fact that Mr Ayers had to go to Congress to testify in front of the US government meant that he
couldn't provide the complete support that the security team required at that time."It was a really tough, isolating time with very little
physical leadership, a lot of people feeling personally responsible and a lot of people feeling the pressure and not able to talk to anyone
about how they were feeling." While he understands why organisations would want to keep an issue like this between a small team of
employees, he believes more needs to be done by employers to take into account the mental health of staff.More Technology of Business"There
needs to be a big enough group who can talk to each other about the pressure they're under rather than a few people carrying the weight of
Companies need to recognise when they do planning exercises for security breach responses that they have a duty of care to security
Bringing in third parties or throwing money at the problem doesn't help - it exacerbates the problem by increasing the workload on the same
staff," he says.The majority of the 11,000 staff first heard about the incident through the news or after being told by a client or family
Mr Rimmer believes employers also have a duty of care to employees within the wider business
"Even if their roles had nothing to do with the incident, they would have felt distanced and almost tainted by association with Equifax but
they had to get on with their jobs as usual," he says.This would also have had a detrimental effect on the employee's effectiveness, as they
would have to catch up on what the data breach meant for their part of the business
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Equifax agreed to pay up to $700m as a result of the breach
"It
wasn't just about security; IT was doing remediation, the legal team had to deal with customers, sales people had to manage relationships
and restore trust, and almost every single part of the business stood still
Although the company will focus on restoring sales and brand perception, they also need to focus on morale and the health of staff across
the entire business," he says
since the incident to enhance our security and technology operations
We have hired highly qualified Chief Technology and Chief Information Security Officers reporting directly to the CEO, as well as nearly
1,000 full-time IT and security professionals
"In addition, we have increased our technology and security spending by an incremental $1.25 billion between 2018 and 2020, and we will
continue to invest heavily to transform our technology and security to industry-leading capabilities." However, Mr Rimmer believes that
companies should not only focus on the financial consequences of breaches, and instead consider the human impact
"Equifax spent millions responding to the breach, but that turned into people from the security team working overtime, on 36 hour shifts,
and that's the hidden cost of the breach that no one has gotten near to quantifying so far," he says
According to Simon Ashton, a business psychologist working at Phoenix Leaders, employers should provide adequate training to ensure that
their staff feel confident in their skills and abilities to deal with the scenario by using role-playing data breach simulations."Once the
situation is under control, employers should provide appropriate support so staff are able to discuss how they felt in that situation, what
they learnt and what they might do differently next time
This reflection time is important, so staff have the opportunity to understand how they might behave differently in future events," he says.
