News

ICM shares data on the causes of BCM plan invocation

ICM Business Continuity has released figures showing the causes of customer invocations from January through to June 2011. 
 
Out of 58 events 42 where related to hardware with 15 attributed to other causes including seven down to power issues and two instances each of Flooding, Fire and Data Corruption. There was even one denial of Access event.
 

Updated Counter Terrorism Strategy announced

The government has completed its review of the CONTEST Strategy designed to fight the threat of terrorism across the UK and the international interests of the country.

The changes have been made to continue to reflect risks posed by terrorists. The four strands of the approach cover:

Pursue: to stop terrorist attacks

Prevent: to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism

Protect: to strengthen our protection against terrorist attack

Prepare: where an attack cannot be stopped, to mitigate its impact

Business Continuity Awards - 2011

 
The CIR Business Continuity awards dinner was held last night at the Hilton Park Lane Hotel. 
 
The winners were:
 

VSAT launched in the South West

 
The Continuity Forum was delighted to once again be working with our colleagues at NaTSCO, Dorset Police and the Counter Terrorism Intelligence unit at this weeks South West Regional launch of the Vulnerability Self Assessment Toolkit (VSAT). The launch was held for around 100 people and included many of the areas leading employers. 
 

MIR3 advises checking Preparedness & DR Plans ahead of Hurricane Season

 
Hurricane season approaches, MIR3 checklist helps Business Continuity Planners prepareWith the 2011 hurricane season set to officially begin June 1, MIR3, the innovator of real-time Intelligent Notification™ and response technology, is urging employers to review their current business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans to keep employees safe and operations running should a hurricane or tropical storm hit.
 
 
According to the Colorado State University forecast team, the 2011 hurricane season is anticipated to be an above average season, with 16 named tropical storms and nine hurricanes likely to form in the Atlantic basin, with five expected to develop into major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher. Employers with staff along the eastern and Gulf coasts of the Atlantic must prepare for risks associated with these storms that can negatively impact business operations including mass power outages, property damage and potential harm to employees.
 

BCM and the Cloud lessons from experience

 
A relatively simple and entirely repeatable human error led to the failure of one of the most respected and reliable Cloud Computing providers, Amazon.
 
Despite having Business Continuity Plans, the resulting collapse left 1,000's of customers and millions of users unable to access a wide variety of Websites causing millions to be lost.
 
Some forecasters are already saying that the EC2 failure will slow the growth of Cloud Computing, with companies concentrating rather more on private Cloud options, rather commit to Public Clouds.   
 

Commons Transport Select Committee reports on winter travel chaos

 
Snow causes massive disruption across the UK The Commons Transport Select Committee has issued its report on last year's snow chaos that shut Heathrow airport and disabled significant parts of the rail network.
 
Many roads including motorways were badly affected and it is reported that £280 million was lost to the UK economy each day.
 

Are rules to tighten over data protection and Business Continuity?

 
In a move that may well impact on all Business Continuity and IT Security departments the European Vice President responsible for Justice is calling for the introduction of rules forcing banks, e.commerce businesses, social networking sites and others who hold confidential data to tell customers as soon as there has been a data security breach.
 
Viviane Reding was previously responsible as an EU member for Information, Society and Media before taking the role of Vice-President of the European Commission, responsible for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship in February 2010.
 
In a speech centred on the need to bolster online privacy she said "trust in an 'information society' has been damaged by the recent events such as the Sony data breach". Her initiative comes at the end of a long line of data breaches that have affected not just many businesses, but also government departments, including health services and tax offices, around Europe. 
 
Viviane Reding, EU Vice President JusticeTo address the concerns raised by these events the Justice Minister is looking at toughening up data protection rules that are already in place for the telecommunications industry to include immediate notification to the regulator when Data has been compromised.
 
The Commissioner is also reviewing the possibility of introducing an enforcement arm that would be responsible for ensuring compliance with the regulations.   
 
Reding is championing the need for plans to address the digital world and the increasing reliance and embedding if technology into everyday activities. The Minister outlined 5 pillars that were needed to build proper data protection. These are: the right to have data forgotten, transparency, 'privacy by design', making firms and authorities responsible for they handle all data and independent oversight and monitoring.
 
The responsibility to protect data is already enshrined under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, but Reding stressed the need for this Charter principles to be supported as the pace of technology change and use brings new risks. 
 
Previous attempts to increase the regulation of Data Protection in business have failed due to the added cost burden and a lack of industry consistency on methods with the result that compliance has been been somewhat watered down. 
 
This time around it may well be different though with the challenge of ensuring business continuity, security and compliance becoming much more important for all organisations.   
 

 

 

 

Former FEMA Exec advocates all hazards approach to Business Continuity in wake of tornados

 
The dozens of tornadoes that ripped through the Southern States of the US in 2011 left 340 people dead and hundreds unaccounted for, according to the latest reports from the Associated Press.
 
In what is one of the worst natural disasters to hit the region since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the storms have people and businesses scrambling to recover from the incredible devastation. But is it even possible for businesses and employees to prepare for a catastrophe of this scale? 
 

ISO announce new ICT security standard to improve Business Continuity resilience

ISO security standards and Business Continuity
 
 
The International Standards Organisation (ISO) has released a new set of international guidelines to help protect and ensure the security of information and communication technologies and boost Business Continuity capabilities.
 
ISO/IEC 27031:2011 is aimed at all organisations regardless of their type, size and complexity and it is hoped that through the adoption of the standard greater resilience against hacking, denial of service and malware attacks will be seen.
 

Obama orders new review of US national preparedness

Obama signs policy directive for Resilience review
 
President Barack Obama has signed a new presidential policy directive (PPD-8) thataims  to deliver a full review and consequently a more streamlined approach national preparedness policy in the US in the wake of Katrina, H1N1 and the Japan Earthquake.

Brian Kamoie, senior director for preparedness policy on the White House National Security Staff, states that many incidents were examined during the directive’s development, including the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 as well as Hurricane Katrina. The federal government included 24 national associations representing a range of stakeholders and disciplines in the review of the national preparedness policy.

Project Argus across the UK

ARCHIVE 

Project Argus is a National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) initiative that explores ways of helping business to prevent, handle and recover from a terrorist attack.
 
Project Argus is a three hour event that utilises multimedia presentations of a simulated terrorist attack and a series of questions and hands on challenges that help participants detail ways in which the organisation could have coped better or indeed have identified the threat earlier.
 

Introducing the Vulnerability Self-Assessment toolkit - VSAT

 
The Business Continuity Forum, National Counter Terrorism Security Office and VSAT
 
VSAT - Vulnerability Self Assessment Toolkit
In February, the Continuity Forum and the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NACTSO) launched a major new tool to help organisations simply and quickly assess and understand the vulnerabilities of their organisations.
 
In front of an audience of very nearly 250 people Lord Reid, former Home and Foreign Secretary and one of the most distinguished parliamentarians of recent generations, the Deputy Mayor, Richard Barnes, who chaired the London Assembly 7/7 report and Sir David Veness, one of the most distinguished counterterrorism experts in the world stood alongside the National Counter Terrorism Security Office and Russell Price of the Continuity Forum to launch VSAT, the latest resource designed to help build resilience and create continuity.
 

Murphy's Law ... Defensive design little light reading

 
Something to think about for all Business Continuity professionals ...
 
Murphys Law
 
Murphy's law (distinct from, and often confused with Finagle's law or Sod's law) is a popular adage in Western culture, which broadly states that things will go wrong in any given situation in which error is possible. "If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way."
 
It is most commonly formulated as "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong" and is something we have become all too familiar with in the Business Continuity Field!
 
Technically speaking, this latter definition is incorrect, given that it refers more accurately to the law of pessimism, Finagle's Law.
 

Security and CT Portal

 
Security and Counter Terrorism information Portal
 
Through this portal page we provide information covering a range of topics that relate to Security and Counter Terrorism information news and advice and connect with your resilience planning  
 
For nearly a decade the Continuity Forum has been working alongside the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, Police, Home Office and others to bring awareness and advice to organisations on what they can do to better secure and protect not only their organisations, but our communities. 
 
Here you will find links and information on various resources that will enable you to build your organisations resilience and create continuity. 
 
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