AU Facebook Data Breach Memorandum

My topic is Facebook data breach

Directions

Below is detail about this stage.

Revise the date of your memo and expand its body and references.Limit this stage of your memo to a maximum of 2 pages with 1-inch margins, 12-point serif font, and double-spacing.Incorporate your instructor’s feedback on the previous stages of your memo.Continue to write the body of your memo by inserting the section title “The Causes.”Use the present tense for this section.

Then use prose to answer the questions below.  Do not merely restate the questions and provide their answers.  Instead, ensure that the body has a narrative flow.

How are factors internal to the organization contributing to the one or more problems?  If you identify more than 5 factors, discuss the 5 most important factors only.  Provide enough of an explanation to imply one or more solutions to the problem (without naming the solutions).How are factors external to the organization contributing to the one or more problems?  If you identify more than 5 factors, discuss the 5 most important factors only.  Provide enough of an explanation to imply one or more solutions to the problem (without naming the solutions).Throughout this section, provide sufficient support for your statements with (a) facts and (b) values from organizational overviews (e.g., an “About Us” page on a website) or codes of conduct (e.g., “Code of Ethics,” “Principles of Professional Practice,” or “Responsible Code of Conduct”) and professional codes of conduct. Facebook
Date: October 17, 2022
To: Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Officer, Policy
Fr: Customer Service Representative, Data Breach Incident’s Press Release
Re: Facebook Data Breach
This memo recommends that the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) on how the
company will communicate the data breach incident to the media. These
recommendations are based on the best way to effectively communicate the issue
without causing more mental problems.
The challenge
The main decision Facebook needs to make concerns the information it will
release to the public concerning the data breach. This will include the extent of the
breach, the number of people affected, and the kind of information accessed. The
decision should also have the kind of reassurance to give the affected stakeholders
concerning the current measures to protect their private information.
Communicating to the media about the data breach will bring to light the
infringement of the right to privacy that Facebook promises all its users, which is
likely to cause psychological damage such as stress, anxiety, and panic. According to
Davis (2019), a data breach will likely result in a loss of trust in an organization. The
world has become a global village, which means news of the data breach at Facebook
will travel fast. Identity thieves may still have to steal critical data if no measures are
enacted immediately. How the organization communicates with the media will be
pivotal in managing mental health issues among the stakeholders. In addition, if
Facebook withholds relevant information about the breach, it will amplify the mental
problems when the hidden information gets uncovered.
Facebook users, advertisers, and employees will likely be the most affected.
The platform has billions of users from all over the world. Effective communication
by Facebook assures the users that there are necessary steps to identify the culprits
and take legal action against them. It also guarantees that more safeguards are in place
to prevent a reoccurrence. That way, the users will trust Facebook’s procedures to
protect against further harm. Advertisers are Facebook’s source of income (Kissinger,
2018). Therefore, the press release informs them that Facebook is a safe platform to
advertise their products. Such a claim is likely to convince them to stay in the
network. Lastly, the press release tells Facebook employees that the organization is
taking all the necessary steps to regain the trust of its users. It will rebuild the
employees’ commitment to organizational goals and team performance.
The release will be to create awareness and reassure stakeholders. However,
the stakeholders affected by the press release can choose how they will be affected.
Users may migrate to other social media platforms where they feel their information
might be safer. Advertisers can also choose other social media platforms to advertise
their products. Similarly, employees can choose to stay with the organization through
the rebuild or resign.
As stated earlier, a data breach damages the users’ right to privacy. Facebook
privacy principles say that users will have control of their privacy (Facebook, 2022).
The regulations also promise to help the users understand how their data is used. This
means that Facebook needs to communicate with its users concerning the data breach.
The principles also state that the organization will work hard to secure users’
information. Therefore, it will be essential to prove that the breach was unavoidable
and that adequate measures have been implemented to keep all information secure.
The approach
After critically investigating and identifying the moral problem present in
Facebook’s organization on how to communicate the news about data bridge
Facebook effectively, there was a need to come up with a specialized team. Factors
such as psychological stress to stakeholders, trust, effective communication to ensure
the arrest of the culprits, and fulfillment of corporate moral responsibility presented a
challenge in fulfilling the moral obligation and needed a unique approach. Also, with
such a big and complex organization that relies on the success of its stakeholders to
achieve its success, it was important to identify and understand how both internal and
external stakeholder groups were affected by the social responsibility issues raised by
the data breach.
A board meeting involving the CEO, board members, and department
managers formed the three most important persons to tackle the data breach news
communication to prevent stakeholder psychological stress. According to the
stakeholder theory (Mohammed, 2022), identifying stakeholders is integral to
preventing psychological stress. For this reason, in an impromptu board meeting
involving the IT CEO of Facebook, the board members, and department managers
were called to address how to identify the different stakeholders and give them
information without causing psychological stress. To prevent a communication crisis,
the meeting decided to communicate the information to primary stakeholders, the
Facebook users, and take a remedial and assurance approach. The restorative
procedure involved resetting Facebook’s servers to prevent multiple data breaches
(Heaslip, 2022). The assurance approach involved timing and clear identification of
the data breach source with proposed measures to avoid a future data breach.
Additionally, the IT CEO was tasked to explain how the data breach was unavoidable.
The two approaches provided less toll on the stakeholders’ psychological state
associated with a data breach.
The second moral obligation from Facebook concerns the identification of the
culprits and a way to bring them to justice. The IT CEO was tasked with identifying
the source of the security threat. The process of determining the start of the data
breach involved target identification and exploiting computer vs. human errors to
assess known vulnerabilities after identifying the source and developing means to
retaliate and infiltrate the attacker’s system to recover breached data. To bring the
culprits to justice, a group of FBI specialists and our team of IT experts ensured the
tracing and apprehension of the people behind the data breach attack on Facebook.
While communicating with the stakeholders, the details of the culprits were shared to
foster trust and reduce psychological stress.
To ensure trust for all our stakeholders, the approach taken to address the data
breach on Facebook involved the following steps. First is the provision of a sincere
and honest report, and although the data breach was not at companies fault, the
company took full responsibility. Second, the team provided a detailed report
explaining the reasons behind the data breach. Third, a special update package was
delivered to all users to reset their Facebook accounts while fully retaining their
private information and data. The fourth step involved educating secondary
stakeholders within the Facebook community, especially the IT and R&D
departments, on preventing such attacks. Finally, the company invited open dialogues
from all Facebook users in a particular review section concerning the data breach.
To correct past mistakes and meet the legal requirements during the data
breach, the team headed by the CEO informed the public promptly as to the details of
the data breach. The team was fully aware of the non-existence of laws requiring
companies to alert their companies in case of any data breach cases (Riley, 2022).
Facebook data breach team approached the lack of laws as a strength for the
company’s reputation by outlining a clear communication plan to avoid legal backlash
while ensuring trust from stakeholders.
References
Davis, M. (2019, July 25). 4 Damaging After-Effects of a Data Breach – Cybint.
Cybint. https://www.cybintsolutions.com/4-damaging-after-effects-of-a-databreach/
Facebook. (2022). Facebook Privacy Basics. Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/privacy-principles
Heaslip, E. (2022). How to Communicate a Data Breach to Customers.
https://www.uschamber.com/co. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from
https://www.uschamber.com/co/grow/customers/how-to-communicatedata-breach-to-customers.
Kissinger, D. (2018, June 20). Facebook Inc. Corporate Social Responsibility &
Stakeholder Analysis. Panmore Institute. https://panmore.com/facebook-incstakeholders-corporate-socialresponsibilities#:~:text=Facebook%20Inc.%20has%20the%20following%20st
akeholder%20groups%20relevant
Mohammed, Z. (2022). “Data breach recovery areas: an exploration of organization’s
recovery strategies for surviving data breaches,” Organizational
Cybersecurity Journal: Practice, Process, and People, Vol. 2 No. 1,
pp. 41–59. https://doi.org/10.1108/OCJ-05-2021-0014
Riley, T. (2022). The Cybersecurity 202: A massive Facebook breach underscores
limits to current data breach notification laws. TheWashingtonPost.
Retrieved October 17, 2022, from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/06/cybersecurity202-massive-facebook-breach-underscores-limits-current-data-breachnotification-laws/.