The Meetings Industry Is Not Worried Enough About Cybersecurity
Skift Take
Cyber security is not a priority for most meeting planners, but experts warn that it’s just a matter of time before the industry is hit with a major breach. Both attendees and event professionals can take steps to protect themselves.
When news broke in September that the credit-reporting firm Equifax was hacked, compromising the personal data of 143 million people, it was a wake-up call for everyone. Individuals and companies started to implement long-overdue steps to protect their data and identities.
But many meeting planners still haven’t gotten the message, according to cyber security experts.
“The meetings industry is not taking this seriously at all,” said Sean Donahoo, CEO of Disruptive Solutions, a provider of cyber security solutions for the meetings and events industry. “It kills me; I see how things are done, and all of the planning that goes into events. Everything is planned for down to a T, except this part; and it's maybe the most important part, if you look at it from a reputation standpoint.”
He added that hackers could be looking for data to use or sell in another hack, or in a spear phishing campaign. They might be getting data for credentials to use to move money around or access a network, or it could simply be a practice test.
Research bears out this potential threat. A 2017 report from the Ponemon Institute and IBM found that the average total cost of a data breach is $3.62 million, and there is a 26.2 percent chance of a recurring data breach in the two years after a breach.
Nearly every major industry has been hit in some way with an attack within their secure network,
