–cidrap–
–Lisa Schnirring –
Feb 24, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – Some of the nation’s emergency departments are noting increases in flu-like illness cases that appear to be pandemic H1N1, and colleges are reporting the first increase in flu-like illness since the end of November, but it’s not clear if these are early signs of a third pandemic flu wave.
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) said today in a Twitter post that some of its members were anecdotally reporting a new wave of pandemic H1N1 patients coming to emergency departments and asked if …

– by Chris Bakowski, MBCI at Linus Information Security Solutions Pty Ltd–
As we are all aware, a Business Continuity Management plan is only effective if it accurately reflects the needs, technology and structure of the organization. But, more importantly, a Business Continuity Management plan can only be considered to be truly effective if the content and the components of the plan have been exercised.
Continuous exercising ensures that there are no gaps or issues; that the key people involved in either the Emergency Response and / or Business Recovery teams are fully …

-Gerry Blackwell-
For many small companies, email is the lifeblood of their business, yet too few protect it adequately against disaster. Not only is email their primary mode of communication, it’s also often a de facto document management system, a searchable repository of vital business data.
But on-premise email servers can fail, data can become corrupted, power can go out for hours or days, offices burn down and natural or man-made disasters can strike. How long could your firm survive without email?
“Email is arguably our most business-critical system,” says Jonathan Swan, director …

- By Ronald C. French -
Feb. 24, 2010
Certain assumptions must be made when developing a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) or a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP). Business operations during an emergency are not “business as usual”. Decisions that are critical to the resiliency of a business in an emergency must be made by managers that are fully knowledgeable of their operations and fully documented in any organization’s BCP/COOP.
Unanticipated threats and emergencies can and will occur with no warning that could cause a significantly adverse impact on an organization’s mission essential …

-Armistead Whitney-
Each year the number of crisis situations faced by businesses grows. This holiday season, the threat came from a thwarted terrorist incident aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Within weeks, a major earthquake struck Haiti. Earlier headlines were riddled with keywords like H1N1, tsunami, terrorism in Mumbai and workplace violence.
 
Each year, CTOs get more responsibilities added to their plates, with the recent trend being to add the overall business continuity to the disaster preparedness work already piling up. Once one ventures beyond data and into true …