Understanding reputational risk

As organisations strengthen their technical defences, cyber criminals are adapting their tactics by targeting other digital vulnerabilities, like the availability of Personally Identifiable Information online.

This shift has resulted in enhanced cyber security risks, such as social engineering and AI-driven attacks, which carry significant potential to cause reputational damage.

Reputational risk is central to an organisation’s overall risk profile, and if neglected, it can have serious financial implications. It refers to any threat that could harm how an organisation is perceived by the outside world- customers, stakeholders, regulators, or the general public.

While not all threats to reputation can be completely eliminated, effective risk mitigation through a proactive and layered defence strategy can significantly reduce the impact and scale.

Every organisation should adopt a structured approach to mitigating risk. However, reputational risk management should be seen as a strategic necessity to organisations that:

• Have significant business interests in the online space
• Have high-profile executives
• Work with sensitive intellectual property or data 

Emerging attack trends

New trends are rapidly emerging in the digital landscape as a result of advancements in technical defences. It’s essential to stay informed on how these evolving threats could impact your organisation.

Advanced social engineering

Attackers are shifting focus from penetrating technical security controls to circumventing them all together in favour of social engineering. By targeting employees of an organisation directly through behavioural manipulation tactics like phishing, they can bypass security systems, or trick individuals into revealing confidential information.

Supply chain attacks

Social engineering attacks are becoming more complex and sophisticated, targeting known third-party suppliers working with much larger or critical organisations as a way of getting around technical cybersecurity measures.

AI-powered social engineering

Attackers are leveraging AI in social engineering campaigns to trick individuals through deepfake phone and video calls, generating fake profiles or getting across language barriers.

Onboarding attackers

We’re seeing a rise in the complexity and frequency of attempts to trick hiring managers into onboarding threat actors directly into their organisation. This poses a huge operational risk, giving attackers the opportunity to cause a breach from the inside. Threat actors often exploit remote roles, where it’s more difficult to vet candidates, and they are able to leverage AI-driven video and language technologies. They typically target IT-related positions where users have privileged admin access across systems.

Mitigating reputational risk

Now more than ever, there's a necessity for organisations to shift to proactive and intelligence-led approaches to managing reputational risk. Organisations should prioritise early identification and continuous monitoring of potential threats, and a broader overview of their risk landscape, including third-party relationships. 

Some of the key strategic approaches to reputational risk management include: 

• Digital risk assessments: An investigation into what damaging information can be found online about high-profile executives within an organisation.
• Due diligence analysis: An investigation into immediate business and reputational risks posed to an organisation.
• Supply chain risk management: Identifying and assessing risks associated with suppliers and potential suppliers or partners.
• Ongoing threat detection: Regular threat detection, monitoring and in-depth analysis of targets including suppliers and potential partners.

How PGI can support your organisation

As the digital threat landscape rapidly evolves, and access to Personally Identifiable Information online increases, organisations face increasing risks that could impact their operations, finances and reputation. 

At PGI, we offer our clients tailored services including digital risk assessments, due diligence analysis, and ongoing threat detection to help you manage and mitigate these emerging threats. By implementing a proactive, layered approach to security, you can help protect your organisation against reputational and operational risks.

Get in touch with us, or learn more about how our corporate intelligence services can help protect your organisation’s reputation.