The TalkTalk cyberattack raised serious security questions about the company’s ability to properly encrypt sensitive customer information. Despite the negative publicity and widespread outrage, TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding claims the:
“majority of customers support our approach”.
She also eluded that:
“Very early indications that customers think that we’re doing the right thing”.
“The cyber attack, while not wishing to diminish it, has been smaller than we thought,”
However, the response on Twitter is quite hostile and clearly shows how frustrated customers are:
https://twitter.com/HarringtonC0/status/664130728263839744
To be fair, Twitter isn’t the most accurate basis of judging mass opinion and usually revolves around the angry minority. However, in this case, I think TalkTalk’s arrogant management really is underestimating the scale of this problem and how damaging it’s been from a PR perspective. Harding weighed in on the company’s future and said the ISP is:
“very confident in the medium term future of TalkTalk”.
“Yesterday’s security might have been good enough but it’s not going to be good enough tomorrow,”
“I expect we will take security considerably more seriously than ever.”
@TalkTalkCare to which he then replied “do you want the installation or not?” Following this he grabbed his tools and stormed off
— Mohamed Hussein (@husseinm82) November 10, 2015
I honestly think customers are struggling to take these promises seriously and there’s a great deal of apprehension regarding network security. The company claims many people decided not to cancel their contract. Although, this might be because leaving their current contract leads to hefty fines. Additionally, a large quantity of TalkTalk’s audience doesn’t feel comfortable switching providers and needs to assistance of someone technically minded. Whatever the case, the cyberattack has dramatically altered people’s perceptions towards TalkTalk and I can’t see that changing anytime soon.
