When a cybersecurity vendor is hacked, the impact goes far beyond the technical incident. How customers, partners, and the wider market respond in the days and weeks that follow can have a far greater long-term impact than the breach itself.

To better understand how breaches affect buyers – and what security vendors can do to maintain confidence when incidents occur – we surveyed 550 security decision-makers globally.

• 95% said they consider how a company has handled a past breach or incident when shortlisting for an RFP
• 91% said they wouldn’t stay with a vendor who isn’t honest when things go wrong “no matter how good the tech is”
• 86% agree that “how a company communicates during a crisis says more about them than their marketing ever could”

For communications and marketing leaders at cybersecurity companies, the question is how to protect trust and brand reputation if the worst were to happen.

It’s clear from our research that buyers assess not only the cause of the breach, but the response – what the company says, how quickly it acts, and whether it communicates with clarity and confidence when it matters most. In fact, almost half of security decision makers say a vendor’s response to a breach has strengthened their relationship.