Media & Victims Find Common Ground Against Hackers

Sadia Mirza, leader of Troutman Pepper’s Incidents + Investigations team, was quoted in the August 9, 2024 Dark Reading article, “Media & Victims Find Common Ground Against Hackers.”

In a Black Hat panel titled “How Hackers Changed the Media (and the Media Changed the Hackers),” Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, senior writer and editor of cybersecurity at TechCrunch; Robert McMillan, reporter at The Wall Street Journal; and Sadia Mirza, partner at Troutman Pepper, joined Sherri Davidoff, CEO of LMG Security, to discuss the new ways hackers are trying to gain the attention of journalists and shape the narrative of the media when a breach occurs.

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It’s not just journalists who take what a hacker says with a grain of salt. Troutman Pepper’s Mirza noted that a threat to go to the media is just one more factor to consider when advising clients who have been breached. The fact that these hackers want to maintain their brand is another factor to consider.

“An organization would be more inclined to pay a threat actor group that has a reputation to uphold its commitment,” Mirza said. Ultimately, however, the goals of the media and incident and investigation teams are very different.

“We’re not trying to break a story,” she said. “We are trying to get our arms around the full scope of what’s happened so that we can provide organized information about the response.”

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How can both be appeased, while also not falling into the trap that hackers have laid out?

It first starts with understanding what an incident response process looks like, said Mirza.

“A forensic investigation could take weeks,” she said. Victims are not comfortable sharing information as soon as the press may want them to because they don’t have all the information they need or want. Sometimes there are hiccups along the road in response and in figuring out what next steps to take; whether it be negotiating a number for the payment, deciding to pay, figuring out how many people have been impacted, or what information has been stolen.