Prepareathon Day offers advice for business
This week’s National Prepareathon Day organized by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is committed to encouraging households, communities and businesses to make emergency preparedness plans for future disasters. The dedicated
ready.gov website has a section aimed at businesses and how they can be prepared to deal with incidents such as floods and hurricanes; flu pandemic and terrorism; and cyber attacks and technology failure. A five-step guide includes planning, implementing and improving a preparedness plan. There is also an Emergency Response Plan and a Business Continuity Plan for download and an online test of business preparedness.
Financial regulator will not force new insurance cover on securities brokers
A plan announced last year which would have forced securities brokers to carry insurance cover against awards to customers who have lost money is not going to happen. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has decided it cannot impose the requirement which would have protected investors from firms that file for bankruptcy when they are unable to pay out awards. FINRA says that insurance underwriters are not keen to cover the kind of high-risk firms that would have been required to have the cover.
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Cyber attacks knock out more high profile names
A new social network that’s creating a buzz, a grocery chain and an airline are among the latest victims of cyber attacks. The anti-Facebook start-up social network Ello, barely a month old, was hit by a DoS (denial of service) attack for 45 minutes on Sunday and yesterday grocery chain SuperValu announced that its payment systems had been hit by a second attack; it was targeted earlier in the year. The latest attack was less severe than the first due to increased security that the firm had added since the initial breach. Japan Airlines is another big name that has revealed details of cyber attack. Personal data of 190,000 members of its frequent flyer program were accessed earlier this month and information such as names, birthdates and workplaces of customers were accessed, although no credit card data was breached.
