Cyber Defense eMagazine June 2020 Edition

Building a “Culture of Caring” for Clients
By Jessica Smith, Senior Vice President, Crypsis Group
When you work in a services industry, it’s natural to become frustrated when clients don’t do the
fundamentals that could prevent significant problems down the line. In cybersecurity, we see it
frequently—much of our business involves helping clients after they have had a significant cybersecurity
incident. It’s possible that a doorway may have been left open for an attacker to enter, and in some cases,
we may learn the root cause of the incident and know the issue could have been prevented.
This frustration is common across many services-based businesses: The dentist treating gum disease
on patients who neglect regular oral hygiene; the IT firm brought in to fix poorly maintained systems;
plumbers called in to do thousands of dollars in repairs when a $100 fix a year ago would have averted
the issue; law firms serving clients who made bad choices; auto mechanics repairing high-end vehicles
that ran dry of oil.
As experts in our field, we may know the steps that could have/should have been taken, and it can seem
on the surface that clients can be their own worst enemies. But it’s important to remember that, no matter
how passionate we may be about our business, our clients have many other concerns beyond
cybersecurity, or dentistry, or plumbing, etc. What may be our core purpose in life is not theirs—and they
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