What is Driving the Increase in Electronic Product Recalls?
There has been a lot of activity on the Electrical Safety First website this year. Even discounting the unprecedented 25 product recalls announced in January, UK recalls have been running at an average of five per month over the last four months. This compares to a total of 36 recalls for the whole of 2020, […]
BCAW Day 5 – What Have we Learnt?
So it’s the final day of Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) 2021: what have we learnt this year? Undoubtedly, BCAW 2021 has been dominated by high-profile ransomware events, with a combination of: Continued fallout from the DarkSide attack on Colonial Pipeline earlier in the month; Ongoing disruption to the Irish Health Service following an attack […]
BCAW Day 4 – Colonial Pipeline Confirms Ransom Payment
In a very rare move, the CEO of Colonial Pipeline has confirmed that the company paid a $4.4m ransom to the criminal gang who targeted the company. Whilst survey data suggests that many companies do pay ransoms, it is almost unprecedented for a business leader to be so candid about the issue. Acknowledging that is […]
BCAW Day 2 – Data Centre Outages Still a Concern
The most recent annual “Causes and Impacts of Data Centre Outages” report by the Uptime Institute gives a fascinating snapshot of the industry. Key findings include: The frequency of data centre outages continues to be a source of concern for both customers and operators: Power issues remain the most common cause of disruption but constitute […]
Business Continuity Awareness Week – Day 1
As ever, it has been a busy start to Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) 2021… Over the weekend, Santander in the UK suffered major technical issues affecting branch, telephone, online, app and card services. Sadly, according to figures compiled by the Financial Conduct Authority, this seems to be part of an ongoing problem, with Santander […]
Ransomware Attack on Irish Health Service and Update on Colonial Pipeline
In a chilling reminder of the Wannacry attack that hit the UK NHS in 2017; the Irish Health Service (HSE) is today dealing with a major ransomware attack . The Health Service Executive has announced that it has closed down its IT systems in order assess the situation and to prevent any further damage. It […]
Salesforce Outage – How Reliable are Cloud-Based Systems?
Salesforce is still working to fully restore services to clients after a serious outage that began late last night. Initially their entire portfolio of customer relationship management services were inaccessible to users; but most were restored within a few hours. As a major player in the software-as-a-service industry, Salesforce are clearly focused on keeping their […]
Will Ransomware Attack Lead to Fuel Shortages in the US?
Concerns are growing about the impact of a ransomware attack on one of the major oil pipeline networks in the US. The Colonial Pipeline, which carries 100 million gallons of refined oil products a day from Houston as far North as New York, has been closed since Friday following a ransomware attack. Emergency legislation has […]
How Damaging is the Peloton Recall?
There has been widespread media coverage over the last 24 hours of Peloton’s decision to recall Tread and Tread+ treadmills in response to a request from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The company’s share price fell 14% on the news, but is this just a fleeting overreaction? At this early stage in the […]
The New (Ab)normal: Reshaping Business and Supply Chain Strategy Beyond Covid-19
Having read Yossi Sheffi’s wonderful “The Resilient Enterprise” some years ago, I had high hopes for this book. Sadly it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. The book is organised in six sections and, for me, the most useful content is contained in the second (“Living with Uncertainty”) and fourth (“Supply Chains for the […]