In a poignant sign of the times, our upcoming CX Sydney 2020 Forum is going virtual. Another sign of the times? In these moments of great distress, cybercriminals are ramping up their efforts. For example, the amount of email scams related to COVID-19 increased by 600% in March.

At our upcoming CX Sydney virtual event, I’ll proudly be presenting on the topic of cybersecurity implications for CX. Cybersecurity, you say? What does that have to do with CX? That was certainly the subtle message when I first started having cybersecurity conversations with CX leaders. But the conversations almost always ended with a deep commitment by all to strengthen the engagement between CX and cybersecurity professionals.

In that spirit, I’m joining forces with my brilliant colleague Riccardo Pasto to talk about exactly those implications and how to improve engagement.

From where I sit, I see on a daily basis how cybersecurity decisions affect your customers’ experience and trust. Technology affects our own experiences, and those of our customers, in rapidly changing ways. We increasingly depend on tech to work, learn, shop, vote, and socialize. The pandemic has brought this dependence to the forefront in a way that perhaps none of us would have imagined two years ago. But that dependence also makes our technology, organizations, and customers a target.

In our session, Riccardo and I will explore how technologies like deepfakes are changing the customer experience and our lives — for better and for worse. In this time of distress, we have seen cybercriminals regularly exploit an already horrible situation and cleverly target their efforts at tricking us, our employees, and our customers.

The pandemic has brought out the best and worst of society. Our session will end with a hopeful message: If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we’re all in it together. In cybersecurity, this is no different. It’s time for CX and security to work together and be creative in finding ways to help ensure a better future for ourselves, our families, organizations, customers, and society.