AT&T’s findings in their annual business continuity survey make for interesting reading and while the report is inevitably US based, it will ring bells with a European audience.
One area of the survey that jumps out at the reader and could stand a second glance is cloud computing.
It takes place on Thursday, 30th June 2011, onboard HMS President, Victoria Embankment, London.
Here’s the line up of excellent speakers:
Mike Methley, Group Chief Operations Officer, Jardine Lloyd Thompson:
'Assuring global client services during natural disasters and incidents.'
Alice Reeves, Assistant Director for Telecoms Resilience, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills:
'The challenges in setting cyber resilience policy.'
Colonel Ru Watkins, Chief of Staff, Selly Oak Military Hospital:
'Delivering rapid organisational change in response to unexpectedly urgent operational requirements.'
Andrew Davidson, Operations Manager, Currency Division, De La Rue:
'Executive leadership and management during an extended corporate crisis.'
Dr Brad Mackay, Director MBA Programme, Edinburgh Business School:
'The application of scenario analysis in strategic resilience planning.'
Jim Preen, Head of Media Services, Crisis Solutions:
'Social networks and their place in supporting crisis response and recovery.'
by Jim Preen
Cyber-crime is rarely out of the news these days. Sony says that hackers may have stolen personal data belonging to as many as 77 million PlayStation gamers. The company admitted that credit card information, used to purchase games, films and music, may be part of the haul.
Just prior to that story breaking, computer security firm McAfee released a report called ‘In the dark: Crucial Industries Confront Cyberattacks’ which casts a beady eye at the impacts of cyber-attacks on power grids, oil, gas, water and the like.
The survey of 200 IT security executives working for utility companies finds that 40 percent believe their industry’s vulnerability has increased. Around 3 out of 10 believe their company is not prepared for a cyberattack and nearly half expect a major cyber-attack within the next year.
Denial of service attack
Buried deeper in the report; 80 percent of respondents say they have faced a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), and a quarter report daily or weekly DDoS attacks.
These types of attacks have the potential to compromise websites and email traffic, but researchers say they are unlikely to disrupt energy supplies.
However, one of the report’s authors, Stewart Baker a former US national security advisor, warned power companies not to be complacent. “We asked what the likelihood was of a major attack that causes significant outage. That is one that causes severe loss of services for at least 24 hours, loss of life or personal injury or failure of a company. Three quarters thought it would happen within the next two years," he said.
By now cynics will be muttering that this is no more than a marketing exercise on the part of McAfee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation and one of the world's largest security technology companies. To put it crudely: McAfee has come up with a worrying report that should frighten us into buying their products. But are the cynics right?
Read the rest of the article here.
Our summer conference takes place in central London on 30th June. You are very welcome to attend.
We have a distinguished panel of speakers, all of whom will provide thought-provoking insights into the management of real-world crises and the challenges of emerging threats.
• Learn from the COO of a major global insurance broker about how they sustained operations when faced with civil unrest, floods and earthquakes.
• Hear from the COO of an international manufacturing group what it’s like to face sustained attacks on a brand.
• Learn from a distinguished academic about the dangers posed by the growing threat of sophisticated cyber crime.
• Learn about the challenges facing government in designing an effective cyber resilience strategy.
• Hear how the British Army embeds a rapid 'lessons learned' approach to operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
• Learn how social networks have been leveraged in the aftermath of major disasters.
Watch this space for further details about the conference.
Unfortunately in a crisis, websites are often forgotten.
Take a look at the on-line presence of some of Japan’s biggest companies in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami.
Toyota’s global home page has a message from the president, who offers his prayers ‘towards the realization of recovery’ but this is now more than two weeks old. Nintendo has a brief message on its Japan homepage but makes no mention of the disaster on any of its other sites. Nissan’s global page has nothing and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial also have other things on their mind.
It seems that Japanese companies still don’t see websites as mainstream communication tools.
In a crisis, a website is a vital resource that should provide essential information to a wide range of stakeholders – staff, customers, suppliers and journalists.
All inappropriate content, including advertising, must be pulled and companies need to have a mechanism for doing that day or night.
Many firms have a dark website that is set up ahead of time, which can be activated in a crisis. If you need help with this or any other aspect of crisis readiness then please go to our website: www.crisis-solutions.com
It can be hard to interest senior management in business continuity. Here’s the general perception:
· It’s dull
· It’s expensive
· And we don’t want to think about crises right now!
So with that in mind here are a series of questions you can drop into conversation with your bosses, which might just persuade them of the importance of crisis readiness.
· How long would it take to get hold of senior management if crisis strikes out of office hours?
· How do we contact employees so they hear about the crisis from us rather than the media?
· Can we update our website out of office hours?
· When was our crisis plan last revised and has it ever been tested?
· Who is our spokesperson in a crisis and who will deputise?
· What companies similar to ours have endured a crisis recently? How would we have coped?
· What would we say in a crisis? Who decides what information to give out and what is the sign off procedure?
Of course, if you have better, scarier questions that promote the cause, then we want to hear from you!
