Fighting Viruses; Cybersecurity and Privacy in a Pandemic. Interview with Chris Moschovitis.

We live in interesting, scary and stressful times when the usual social and business norms have been catastrophically upended. For businesses as well as individuals, past concerns about cybersecurity and privacy have evolved. How can we pivot to the new reality and respond? 

According to cybersecurity and privacy expert Chris Moschovitis, there are things we can do. Moschovitis is cybersecurity (CSX, CISM) and Enterprise IT governance (CGEIT) certified and has written books on these subjects -  "CybersecurityProgram Development for Business: The Essential Planning Guide" (2018) and "Privacy, Regulations, and Cybersecurity: The Essential Planning Guide" (to be published in 2021)

Charlene Weisler: Have cybersecurity considerations changed since the pandemic? If so, how?

Chris Moschovitis: They have not necessary changed, but they have increased.  Unfortunately, both nation-state sponsored hackers and organized cybercriminals have no qualms about kicking us when we’re down.  And, that’s what is happening.  Campaigns of disinformation, plus ransomware attacks against healthcare facilities have increased. 

Weisler:  How can we protect ourselves from hackers and phishers - have the rules changed during the pandemic? And how can we best protect ourselves?

Moschovitis: The best way to protect ourselves is to be aware that the attacks are increasing in frequency and sophistication.  We are particularly sensitive, depressed, and on the edge, hungry for information, and looking for news about a cure or a vaccine.  Beware of phishing emails capitalizing on this stress, and be particularly careful of “medical alerts” from government bodies.  The CDC, WHO, and the local governments will not be sending emails out asking you to supply your personal information or clicking any links.  Inspect the sender’s email address, and read the URL very carefully to make sure it’s not a spoof.  For those in IT or cybersecurity that work in healthcare you need to recognize that you’re a target and act accordingly.

Weisler: What advice can you give companies whose workers are working from home regarding cybersecurity?

Moschovitis: Teleworkers represent a real threat to corporate networks.  That is because they are usually using their own computers that are not as protected as the corporate ones.  As a result, it is critical that corporate IT departments allow remote connectivity through carefully monitored tunnels, and expand the umbrella of corporate cybersecurity protection to include remote workers.  The teleworkers themselves need to remain vigilant in terms of maintaining their home computer “clean” and up-to-date with operating and application security patches, current antivirus/antimalware software, and exercise extreme prejudice on any email that’s asking them for personal information, money transfers, or providing links for downloads.

Weisler: Is privacy still a concern? Don't we want to share more in this environment?

Moschovitis: Privacy is always a concern! We may be forced, for example, to share geolocation and behavioral data to the government in an attempt to monitor potential COVID outbreaks.  This is already happening in some countries, and it is starting being discussed here in the U.S.  As with everything, it will be a tradeoff between the benefit that we individually and collectively as a society will receive, vs. the lack of privacy that may be required.  Keep in mind, that once the horse leaves the barn, it is extremely difficult to put back in.  So, if we grant access to all this information, we may never be able to revoke it, all in the name of one valid reason or another.  We need to be at peace with that decision.

Weisler: Do you think this is a new normal that will last after the pandemic?

Moschovitis:  Yes.  This pandemic changed the world forever.  Telework became a new norm, and the need for it proved to all that we don’t need as much office space and density as we had in the past.  Social distancing will never be looked at the same way.  City vs Suburbs pros-and-cons conversations will flare up again.  The real estate market will dramatically be impacted, in both positive and negative ways, travel and hospitality, and work conditions and expectations will forever change.  Media and entertainment will also be severely impacted (movie theaters, theaters, concerts) especially as the numbers come in that will confirm what most entertainment executives knew:  On-demand is cheaper to distribute and brings in just as much money as a theatrical release.  Finally, on the media platform side, there will be a “reckoning.”  Facebook, google, etc., will have a very difficult time justifying a hand-off type of curation while millions die from disinformation posted on their platform and democratic institutions shudder.  We will be dealing with the aftermath of this pandemic for years, and our world will never be the same.  It is my hope that we can all get together and work to get this transformation right!

 This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Three Views About the Global Advertising Market. An ARF Virtual Town Hall

For those of us in the media industry, these days of coronavirus uncertainties in personal health and finances also include concerns about the future of the media business, specifically the impact of the pandemic on advertising revenue. The ARF has been offering Virtual Town Halls on the subject with the most recent one on Global Advertising held on March 26. What are the long term impacts and best practices that we can adopt to plan for the future? 

Hosted by ARF President and CEO, Scott McDonald this Town Hall polled three industry experts on the subject – Laura Martin, Entertainment and Media Analyst, Needham & Co, Brian Wieser, Global President Business Intelligence, GroupM and Christian Polman, Chief Strategy Officer, Ebiquity.

A Look at the Market by Laura Martin

Challenges in Predicting - For Laura Martin, past predictions of the market were not prescient. Back in December 2019, both Zenith and WPP were predicting global ad spend increases of over 4% year to year. But by April, she anticipates that huge losses will result in the GDP cratering as unemployment claims skyrocket. “Economies are shutting down,” she stated and noted that it is not easy for professional forecasters look ahead with any certainty regarding GDP. Challenges abound. First they must be able to predict when the infection rate will peak in every country. Then, after peaking, they need to see how long it will take for consumer demand to return. Following that, they would need to know what percentage of small businesses will fail before consumer demand returns. “Because small businesses are a large part of overall advertising,” she explained.

But the U.S. is in Better Shape than Other Countries - Martin uses the stock market as a predictive indicator and currently, with its huge declines and high volatility, “the market is telling you (to expect) a negative $6 trillion forecast. But how much of that decline is (consumer) sentiment and how much of it is actual fundamental deterioration?” But there is cause for some optimism, even if only relative to other countries. The U.S. stock market represents 44% of the market capitalization of the world, 20% of all listed companies and has more highly valued companies on average. This means that the U.S. is better prepared to become more dominant over time compared to the rest of the world, “because the rest of world businesses are all a third the size.” So while we may be worried about small businesses in the U.S., “the rest of the world is actually in worse shape.” Another factor in our favor is that the U.S. is more productive than most other economies. But now may not be the time to buy, she warned. We don’t know how long it will take for the virus to dissipate and consumer sentiment is currently “anti-exuberance,” meaning depressed and cautious.

Uneven Impact on Global Advertising – Martin used the Travel category as an example of how the global advertising market could be negatively impacted. Travel and Hospitality, which has effectively shut down, was projected to edge out CPG in 2020 as the fifth largest digital advertising category representing 8.6% of ad spend. Because half of all Travel spending is on digital media, Martin posited that the impact from Travel advertising shutting down is three times worse on digital than it is on offline media. Further, Google Search represents 70% of Travel digital ad spend. The takeaway is that,” when travel silos turn off, different media is affected in different ways.” In addition, she noted that because 50-70% of TV inventory is bought in the prior May and is contractually obligated, TV is in better shape than digital (which is bought in scatter and by auction and can be cancelled immediately) to withstand market volatility.

A Cause for Optimism by Brian Wieser

Optimism with a Caveat - Brian Wieser is seeing some hope for optimism in the virus trends. He has been monitoring China where the latest reports show a slowing of the spread. “China has turned a corner,” he explained, it is, “a baseline to think about how this plays out in different countries.” But, he noted, there are three different kinds of countries and each type needs to be taken into account when projecting the impact on global ad spending. For Wieser, countries divide into, “those who were hit with the crisis and immediately took appropriate aggressive steps to address the matter, among those Japan, Singapore and South Korea. There are those countries that messed up for a month and then took aggressive steps and China is probably the best example. And then there are countries that messed up for a month. Messed up for another month and are hopefully taking the right steps. Italy is pretty clearly in that category. It remains to be seen how exactly different countries will follow.”

Small Businesses Have Severe Risks - However, Wieser believes that small businesses are the most immediately impacted and often “have the fewest resources to see them through a crisis such as this one with a limited ability to tap into the financial systems” for help. Unfortunately, “a lot of the support we’ve seen to date has not been focused on those companies and this is where the most severe risks are. Small businesses are being hit first and fast.” Lessons from the past financial crisis are not always the same lessons for today. Countries with a solid safety net provide some relief for small businesses but this not ubiquitous worldwide.

Supply Chain Considerations – Because China is getting back to business, Wieser is less concerned about and lost output that could disrupt the supply  chain, which at the time of the initial outbreak, seemed inevitable. But, “the bigger threat is that other countries around the world don’t take the right actions and then become the risk for China if demand doesn’t reemerge. The bigger point is that we can actually make this worse.” Specific public policies and actions by citizens and by individual countries will drive much of the outcome which at this point is an unknown.

What Should Brands Do? – In this time of uncertainty, brands should focus on ways to stay relevant and be helpful to consumers. Some companies are pivoting in ways that change their business in socially positive ways. Take, for example, “companies with alcohol products are finding ways to convert their production lines to hand sanitizer manufacturing. Anyone with a capacity to produce heavy metal based hardware can produce ventilators,” he explained. “But even brands that have nothing to do with the physical needs of emergency professionals  are finding ways to be helpful,” by altering their creative messaging such as C  O  C  A  C  O   L   A to encourage social distancing.

A Pragmatic View By Christian Polman

No Surprise - Any pandemic outbreak shouldn’t come as a surprise because, Polman asserted, if you go into the archives, policy health experts have been talking about this for a long time. A perfect storm has been created, he suggested, by Poor Planetary Health which risks the spread of infection, an Interconnected Global Supply Chain that is unsustainable, particularly the food supply chain, the rise of Nationalism and Unilateralism, “coming into mainstream politics which divides populations at a time when we need cooperation” and the Low Levels of Trust in Institutions, “which is getting worse and worse, at a time when trusted information is critical to inform the public and to guide policy making.”  

Long Term and Short Term – Polman believes that a long term need is finding a sustainable food chain, “and one that needs to be affordable.” In the short term, pressing needs include, “having a vaccine, a preventative treatment as well as long term testing.” He noted that, “consumer confidence is key here.” But this will be problematic as the latest studies show that confidence is in free fall. Yet the long term trend for GDP growth and ad expenditures, “is yo yo’d over a long period of time and quite consistently over the economic cycles. The rule of thumb is to expect a downturn every ten years. We were due one but I don’t think anyone foresaw how this one would be happening.”  But, he added, we always bounce back so those who can afford it should start to plan for the recovery.

Success Factors – The reasons for this economic downturn are different from previous ones. Brand Relevance has never mattered as much as now. Take for example hand sanitizers which are, according to Polman, counter-cyclical. But, “Media is a more normal example,” he stated. “Media consumption has been going up dramatically as it typically does in a down cycle as a function of more people who are unemployed. In this case, people unemployed and people stuck at home.” Agility is another success factor where making decisions fast is a big differentiator. Risk Taking is another; “It’s not just making decisions quickly but being able to take risks to take advantage of any opportunities,” he added. Long Term Orientation, “matters a lot. The companies that are long term oriented are the ones that are going to win.” And, “Consumer Trust has never mattered more. It will be critical,” he added.  He advised that brands, depending on the category, should maintain their market share of voice, “which you can do even with a lower budget…  It could take three years for brands to see the full impact of their investment. That’s why it’s such a key long term game.”

In a parting word of advice, Polman offered the following, “Every one of us has a role to play when it comes to leading and driving corporations. A lasting message from all of this is in any crisis, the rate of change will accelerate.” I wonder, can we handle any greater rate of change?

 This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com