Cybersquatters

There's nothing Crisis Lounge regulars like better than a new take on the financial meltdown...

So called cybersquatters are registering domain names for many of the merging banks.

Lloydstsbhbos.com has been snapped up, and the domain bankofmerril.com is already attracting £1,000 on eBay.

Domain names are big money - at a recent auction huge sums were paid for the new .mobi extension. For example flowers.mobi sold for €200,000 while fun.mobi fetched €100,000.

But as far as making money out of domain names goes, the champion must be Chris Clark who sold the name pizza.com for over $2.6 million in April having bought it fourteen years ago for only $20.

Blue light special

Over the years the Lizard has done quite bit of work with the Emergency Services – particularly the fire service. The Lizard thoroughly enjoys his trips up to the Fire Service College just outside Chopping Norton where he is assured of a warm reception and a delicious lunch. Well, one of those statements is true.

All of which is a long winded intro to tell you that the Emergency Services Show is held this year at Stoneleigh Park Coventry between the 19th and 20th November.

Turn on the blue light and hurry along.

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Credit crunch

The Credit Crunch – why does it keep reminding me of breakfast cereal?

Over time we’ve done quite a bit of work for one of the banks that’s just been caught up in the financial tsunami – in fact they engaged up to deliver several major crisis simulations.

At Crisis Solutions we pride ourselves on the reality of our scenarios, in fact some of our consultants like to joke that if they dream them up they usually happen.

At this particular bank we tested them with pandemic flu and then on another occasion with terror attacks – bombs and anthrax as I recall.

Frankly to start with they struggled, but over time they honed their crisis skills.

We might not have known about sub-prime loans when we conducted their training, but a crisis is a crisis and their ability to withstand this financial turmoil has been impressive.

Crises come in many guises and some may be impossible to predict, but if the right plans are in place and those plans have been tested then the organisation involved has a much greater chance of thriving and surviving.

Actress demands screen test

The Lizard remembers a time when computers took up a whole room and were operated by strange geeky men in white coats. Now we can’t do without them. If the Lizard’s broadband connection goes down for five minutes then wailing and gnashing of teeth is heard throughout the land and if you listen carefully you can hear the Lizard’s wife telling him to put a sock in it.

All of which is a pre-cursor to this story, sent in by a Crisis Lounge regular. Thank you Richard.

A Canadian actress and playwright has been charged with holding a computer expert hostage after losing her internet connection.

Carol Sinclair lost her connection with ISP Aliant and, by her own account, spent days trying to fix it.

She said, “I was polite the first 20 times I talked to them. But each one gave me the same routine, 'Is the modem connected? Are the lights blipping?' And then they would tell me it must be a fault with my computer.”

Finally Sinclair said she resorted to impersonating a man's voice and got a repairman sent out the next day, a "huge, strapping young man", 21 year-old David Scott.

Sinclair said that when he couldn't fix the problem she asked him to stay until a second technician was sent.

However, local police disagree with the woman's version of the events.
"She told the technician, in a tirade, that he was not leaving until her internet was working and she told him she was keeping him hostage," said Constable Jeff Carr. "She implied that she had a gun, although he didn't see one."

The technician claimed he could fix the problem, but needed to retrieve a disc from his van. When he got to the van he jumped in and drove off.

Sinclair denies the charges, and says she was shocked at her arrest by five officers. "I'm a Buddhist," she said. I'm a wimp. I'm a pacifist."

She has been charged and banned from speaking to Aliant or any of its employees.

Hi-tech Incident Database

Yasir, our indefatigable searcher after crises, has come up with another Incident Database and as you can see from the title we are in the realm of the nerds and geeks. Yes it's cyber-crime time.

Date: 25.08.08
Location: USA / Europe
Type: Incident
Category: Crime / Reputational
Description: The Best Western Hotel chain has had to refute claims made by the Glasgow Sunday Herald, that an Indian hacker accessed personal data of over 8 million customers staying at their 1,312 European hotels. Best Western hit back saying the story was ‘grossly unsubstantiated’ but conceded that data was accessed by an unauthorized person but claimed only one hotel was affected. The hacker is thought to have obtained the details by accessing the online booking system through a key stroking program.

Comment: This incident demonstrates the ever-increasing threat businesses encounter from hackers, which can anger customers and tarnish the reputation of the company involved.
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Date: 28.08.08
Location: UK
Type: Incident
Category: Crime / Technology
Description: Self-checkout tills in UK supermarkets are being targeted by hi-tech criminals, using stolen US credit cards. Magnetic strips are removed and attached to fake credit cards. Fraudsters use the self-checkout service to avoid contact with staff. The scam only works on swipe and sign transactions, which are still common in the US. Security experts say this type of credit card fraud, where stolen cards are used in another country, is becoming increasingly common.

Comment: The international nature of credit card fraud makes it difficult to combat and indicates the need for the US to adopt pin numbers on a countrywide basis.
Click here to read more

Date: 26.08.08
Location: U.K.
Type: Incident
Category: Crime / Technology / Reputation
Description: A computer, containing approximately one million customer bank details, has been sold on EBay for £35. American Express, RBS and NatWest, confirmed that some of their customers were affected. The computer had belonged to Graphic Data, which stores financial information for organisations. RBS viewed the incident as a serious breach and are working closely with Graphic Data to minimise and resolve the situation. American Express said it was working 'as a matter of priority' to establish which of its cardholders could have been affected.

Comment: This highlights the need for firms that hold client sensitive information to have rigorous security protocols in place. The FSA can fine financial institutions for loss of information. The Nationwide were hit with a £980,000 fine for the loss of a laptop that contained client information.
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Cabin fever

The Lizard is a frequent flyer, so when the Ryanair depressurisation incident hit the news-stands it gave the Lizard pause for thought.

We’ve all sat through the pre-flight chat from the cabin staff about how if deprerssurisation occurs masks will drop down, to then hold them over ones face and breathe normally. Well we now know from passengers on the flight that normal was nowhere in sight.

The Lizard decided to find out more.

Passenger planes fly at altitudes of over 30,000ft. Up in the stratosphere there is so little oxygen that humans only have about twelve seconds before they start to become disoriented, pass out and eventually die. Presumably in a plane the time frame is a little longer – but not by much.

When cabin pressure fails the pilot executes a well-rehearsed procedure.

He needs to get the plane down from the normal cruising altitude to around 8,000ft feet where passengers can breathe normally. The only problem is he doesn’t have long as the emergency oxygen supply only last for about twelve minutes. As a result, the plane is put into a five minute, white-knuckle dive.

During the Ryanair incident passengers complained that nobody told them what was going on. Given the emergency and the fact that both the crew and the cabin staff were wearing face masks this was hardly surprising.

The Lizard listened to one of the passengers on Radio 4’s Today programme. Pen Hadow, an arctic explorer, said that there was no warning and that most passengers thought they were going to die, but he also claimed that the oxygen supply from the face masks didn’t work.

Ryanair claim there was oxygen but that the flow is very light and not easy to detect.

Because of the steep descent many of the passengers suffered damage to their ears – whether this is long term or just temporary is unclear.

In any one year about six of these events take place.

So perhaps next time you fly you’ll pay a little more attention to that tedious pre-flight announcement.

The Lizard makes no claim to be an expert on this matter - if you know more get in touch.