ICT Continuity

Major new British Standard for Cyber Risk and Resilience [Consultation]

BSI Cyber Risk and Resilience Standards BS 31111A major new British Standard [BS 31111] is in development to help senior executives and risk managers improve their cyber risk management and build the cyber resilience of their organizations.

Over the past year, the BSI Risk Management Committee has been working on developing new guidance that aims to help top executives better understand and manage the technology risks to their organizations.  

New ISO cybersecurity standard published.

 

This new ISO standard (27032:2012) will help ensure safety of online transactions and personal information exchanged over the Internet, and protect your computer when browsing any Websites.

We nearly all rely on the Internet for all kinds of day to day activity in our business and personal lives, from sharing important work files to paying our bills and cybersecurity has become a key concern for all of us. A new ISO standard, ISO/IEC 27032:2012, Information technology – Security techniques – Guidelines for cybersecurity, will make cyberspace safer.

London Businesses Undertake Unprecedented 'Stress Test' Ahead of the Olympics

 
For the first time ever, businesses across London are coming together to undertake the Capital’s largest co-ordinated test of IT, telecommunications and transport requirements. 
 
The ‘Stress Test’, scheduled for 8 and 9 May 2012, aims to simulate conditions during the London 2012 Games later in the summer, when many businesses will employ alternative working arrangements such as flexible hours to alleviate disruption to their operations. 
 

Phoenix and ICM Business Continuity unite Under Single Brand

 
ICM and Phoenix brands merge ICM Business Continuity and Phoenix brands to merge and deliver customer centric solutions for both partners and end-users
 
Phoenix, one of the leading providers of hosting, cloud and managed IT services in the UK, has today unified into a single integrated entity bringing together the strengths of both the ICM and Phoenix IT Services brands under one name – Phoenix.
 

ICM builds resilient Cloud for Honda in two year deal

 
ICM and Honda sign 2 year deal for Cloud ServicesHonda (UK) has signed a two-year deal with ICM to move its website into a public cloud environment. Previously hosted by another provider via a private cloud, the new platform will save the manufacturer running costs, whilst ensuring 24/7 website availability.
 

ICM wins expanded Recovery contract with Experian

ICM Business Continuity Services
 
Experian now has more than 300 work area recovery seats at ICM’s Nottingham centre for both call centre and back office staff.
 
Edward Sherley-Price, Head of Business Continuity at Experian, explains: "The location of ICM’s work area recovery centre is ideal for us. Should our offices become unavailable, the centre is on a city tram stop, near a motorway junction and has plenty of parking. It means that our staff can carry on work without disruption and get there in the usual way that they commute."
 

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.
 

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.   
 

Business Continuity Failure may have a long term silver lining

 
The Amazon EC2 "failure" has probably caused their customers to take a hard look at their business continuity plans and Amazon working hard to improve their own resilience so that they can recover the confidence of their customers and maintain a dominant market position.
 
Business Continuity Lessons from EC2 FailureFor some time the potential offered by the cloud has been the topic of discussion between BC and IT Security Professionals. Some are positive and see the potential for economies and resilience to be improved, others see the risks of creating a critical and possibly difficult to address dependency. Both are right and the example set by Amazons embarrassing failure is in many ways potentially fortuitous to the industry as a whole as it highlights the basic issue involved. Stuff will fail and you have to plan thoroughly for it!
 

Managing ICT Risks May 11th

 

When you think about risks posed by IT today, your concerns go way beyond what’s happening in the data centre or the IT department. Information and Communications Technology is an essential part of virtually every business process. As a result, managing Technology Risk now means much more than protecting data.  It means protecting the heart of the business itself. 

 

ICM's latest version of Emergency Office now includes Voice and Apple

 
ICM has launched a new version of their Emergency Office Remote Working Solution with upgraded features that extend the capabilities of the service and raises the bar across the sector by adding voice capabilities.  
 
The Emergency Office is a remote working solution offering corporate data and now new telephony services from any PC over standard home broadband connection.
 

Ensuring infrastructure resilience in an online world

 
Contributed article
 
The Internet is a wonderful tool when it works, but we are increasingly at a loss when it encounters a problem. Steve Durbin, Global VP at Information Security Forum (ISF), looks at what organisations should be doing to minimise the risks and boost their Business Continuity , as a growing proportion of commercial transactions are performed online.
 

New Event - Clarity in the Cloud - 25th November ***

Business Continuity Forum Cloud Computing Special event
Clarity in the Cloud Workshop/Seminar
London  -  25th November 

 

Debating the Cloud - 28th September - London

Business Continuity Forum Cloud Computing Special event
Clarity in the Cloud
Debate Session - London  -  28th September - 08:00-10:30

 

Avanti win £4.5m Contract

Business Continuity Forum satellite broadband communications and Business Continuity

Avanti (AIM: AVN), the broadband satellite operator, is pleased to announce that it has signed a three year contract with Computerlinks which becomes a major distributor for Avanti’s Business Continuity products including its patented Business Internet Continuity (BIC) service.

Computerlinks will enable its channel partners, of whom there are over 5,000, to address the rapidly growing market demand for disaster recovery telecoms services. They will now be able to provide true Business Internet Continuity to their installed and new customers who are becoming increasingly wary of reliance on single circuits to connect them to the “Cloud” or to their own application and data servers.

Avanti has secured international patent protection for its Business Internet Continuity product, which is capable of instantly restoring, by satellite, not only connectivity but also IP addressing in the event of a failure of customers’ primary telecoms circuit. The contract is worth up to £4.5 million.

Commenting, David Williams, Avanti Chief Executive, said:

“This contract brings an important new revenue stream to Avanti and our first major sale of our patented Business Internet Continuity product to a large and highly expert customer. With the increasing importance of cloud computing in the Enterprise market, simple, cost effective and scalable Business Continuity solutions will be in demand across the World. Avanti’s patented Business Internet Continuity product has potential application for almost every connected business in the World and takes satellite broadband beyond core rural and enterprise markets. With the global reach of Computerlinks working together with the coverage offered by the HYLAS fleet of three satellites, the possibilities are very exciting.”

For more on Avanti click here


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