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Firms relying on datacentre service providers should beware, after a spate of high-profile outages

Recent power outages at two separate datacentres have highlighted the necessity for firms to implement effective business continuity measures, and for IT managers to be more discerning about their service providers' back-up plans, according to experts. 

On Sunday a datacentre in North London belonging to service provider Level 3 Communications suffered a power cut which lasted around six hours, while in the US, popular social networking site MySpace went down after the same problem affected its Los Angeles datacentre. 

Planning for a disaster is essential good business practise

Hopefully the plans will never need to be put into place, but it's better to be safe than sorry Very few small business owners plan on having a fire, burglary or flood - never mind being caught up in a terrorist incident.

Most will have insurance but more than half have no plan for keeping the business running in an emergency, according to a CBI/KPMG survey, despite 2005's London bombings and the Buncefield fuel depot explosion. Twenty four per cent of London firms lost business after the bombings and the Buncefield blast cost neighbouring companies £70 million.

Wal-Mart takes the reins in emergency planning

With Florida in the path of the season's first tropical storm, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ramped up its emergency operations center yesterday for the kind of disaster relief effort that won it praise for responding faster than the government last year after Hurricane Katrina.

Wal-Mart's emergency management director, Jason Jackson, said that last year's successes raised expectations from the private sector in times of disaster. Because of that, he said, the world's largest retailer would coordinate more closely with government agencies, the American Red Cross, and even business rivals.

Three quarters of Financial Instiutions breached

The world's largest financial institutions reported an increase in the number of security attacks over the past year with more than three-quarters of respondents (78 per cent, up from 26 per cent in 2005) confirming a security breach from outside the organisation and almost half (49 per cent, up from 35 per cent in 2005) experiencing at least one internal breach.

These findings are revealed in the 2006 Global Security Survey released by business advisory firm Deloitte. The fourth annual survey consisted of interviews with senior security officers from the world's top 100 global financial institutions and acts as a global benchmark for the state of IT security in the financial sector.

Business Continuity Management BCM - SME - BCM Planning

Are you risking it all for the sake of not backing up?

Results from recent research carried out by Dell and the Federation of Small Businesses show that small businesses are failing to realise the importance of having a robust disaster recovery plan.

With three-quarters of small businesses that took part in the survey choosing to store sensitive company data on PCs as opposed to servers or storage devices, it is alarming to think that 69 per cent of these businesses also believe they are well equipped to recover from disaster, such as loss or theft of data or virus attacks.

Your chance to review and comment on BS25999

The draft stand for the new British Standard BS 25999 titled "Guide of Practice for Business Continuity Management" will commence the public comment stage during early July.

The Standard has been developed from the work of the technical committee formed in August of 2005 and this public consultation on the draft standard marks one of the final steps ahead of the final publication of BS25999 (Part 1).

The public comment stage will last 60 days and once closed all submissions will be reviewed by the committee. There will be a standard form for all submissions on the draft standard which will shortly be available from the BSI. With the degree of interest likely in the draft, and the time required to review all comments the BSI now hopes to publish BS25999-1 in the late Autumn.

Work on Part 2, which importantly establishes the control framework for the standard, will start in July 2006 and the committee expects to publish this in early 2007.

The Continuity Forum will continue working with the BSI committee throughout this period and we'll be running a number of supporting events aimed at helping organizations to understand and manage their transition to the new standard. For more information on this topic please contact us directly.

Bird flu. Peak oil. Terrorism. Hurricanes... and BCM of course

The past few years have been dominated by these and a thousand other apocalyptic headlines. And businesses, from the smallest SME to the largest multinational, are taking notice. After all, there is something about the feeling of impending catastrophe that tends to concentrate the mind.

With questions of business continuity shooting up the agenda, the disaster planners are in high demand.

Category Business Continuity Management BCM - Research - Support

Stark differences in international approach

A survey has revealed stark differences in the things that most concern heads of IT as they formulate effective business continuity strategies. Whereas just 1% of American businesses documented terrorism as a source of IT downtime, SteelEye's 2006 Business Continuity Index shows that European response is much more tuned to a terrorist attack, with 12% of businesses attributing downtime to terrorism.

Risk Management and BCM imperative in new world of risk

The world is a dangerous place, and becoming more so. Executives face a myriad perils, any of which could close their businesses and cause immense pain to investors and staff alike.

To make life even more difficult, the cost of achieving peace of mind through insurance is increasing. This makes understanding and managing risk very important.

Category Business Continuity Management BCM - Security - BCM Planning

Breaches caused by complacency rising 

The fourth annual Computer Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) study reveals that reliance on technology alone will not stamp out computer crime. In fact people are the biggest security threat causing nearly 3 in 5 of incidents and the situation has significantly worsened from last year, when people were responsible for 47% of breaches.  

Recommendations put forward following an independent review of the UK's avian quarantine system were today largely accepted.

An independent review of the UK's avian quarantine system by a team chaired by Nigel Dimmock, emeritus professor of virology at Warwick University last October, put forward 32 recommendations of which 29 have been accepted or accepted in principle. Two require further consideration and one has been rejected (see point 4 in “Notes to Editors for further details).

Ben Bradshaw, minister for animal health and welfare, said: “Professor Dimmock's report was thorough and wide-ranging. It provided us with a challenge, we have now reviewed our procedures and we have presented a response which we think is workable and proportionate.  “I'm sure tightening the system where it is required will reassure the public that our quarantine system would be able to work effectively if imports resume.

Professor Dimmock's review considered, among other aspects, the authorisation of premises for holding birds in quarantine and transit, procedures on importation of birds, the operation of quarantine premises including biosecurity measures and relevant domestic and European legislation.

Based on Professor Dimmock's recommendations, Defra will now:-

-Set up closer veterinary supervision and audit of quarantine by the State Veterinary Service (SVS)

- Create a central SVS IT system of key data linked to quarantine

- Revise guidance for the structure and equipment of quarantine facilities

- Introduce management plans for quarantine operators - Write a bird welfare code for importers and quarantine operators

- Enhance laboratory testing of quarantined birds

The government response is available from the Defra website.

If you would like to know more about how your organisation can get involved and benefit from working with the Continuity Forum, please email us HERE! or call on + 44 (0) 208 993 1599.

Thousands of MasterCard and Visa cardholders affected... 

A UK-based online retailer has been identified as the source of a security breach that has resulted in thousands of MasterCard and Visa holders having their credit cards cancelled this week. 

At least 4,000 UK MasterCard holders are believed to have now been affected by the breach which occurred after hackers gained access to credit card details via the as-yet-unnamed e-tailer. 

"Insiders pose greatest risk" says Soca e-crime fighter...

Employees are still one of the greatest threats to corporate security as new-aged mafia gangs infiltrate companies, the UK's crime-fighting agency has said.

Tony Neate, e-crime liaison for the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), said insider 'plants' are causing significant damage to companies. He said: "We have fraud and ID theft but one of the big threats still comes from the trusted insiders. That is people inside the company who are attacking the systems. "[Organised crime] has changed. You still have traditional organised crime but now they have learned to compromise employees and contractors. [They are] new-aged, maybe have computer degrees and are enterprising themselves. They have a wide circle of associates and new structures."

Business Continuity Management BCM - PR and BCM - Support - Advice

The importance of PR

In the final run in of the premier league there was a crucial crunch game, two London clubs were playing and the result would decide final placings worth millions and vitally a place in European football next season. Definitely a big story for the sports pages, but that wasn't were it ended up. 

Instead, it hit the front page of most of the tabloids and was featured on virtually all broadcast media because 10 of the players of one team fell ill with  “food poisoning " whilst staying a luxury hotel. Skulduggery was claimed, the police called and the media camped outside of the hotel in question.