Have Cyber Attacks Killed People?
This week, Charlie discusses the evidence behind cyber attacks indirectly causing the death and injury of people. Also, the importance of exercises to train employees on how to work efficiently during a cyber attack. This week there was a cyber attack on NHS 111, with the hackers targeting its software supplier, Advanced. As healthcare is
Has Health & Safety Gone Mad?
After witnessing a near miss incident during a fishing competition, Charlie reiterates the importance of health and safety checks, risk assessments, and great response plans. A couple of weeks ago, I was involved in a near miss accident at the Isle of Coll fishing competition, so I wanted to share a few thoughts on this
Include a ‘Working Strategy’ in Your Plans
This week, Charlie discusses why using a simpler incident response model is better suited for clients. For a long time, I have been working on developing and refining a framework for responding to and managing incidents. The framework has to be simple, as those who are going to use it will likely have limited training,
Flu Pandemic Planning 2006 and What Really Happened!
This week, Charlie discusses pandemic plans that were suggested back in 2006, and how they compare to the actions that were taken during the height of the COVID pandemic. I came across the booklet ‘Flu Pandemic Guidelines for Businesses’ produced by Survive when we were moving our office. I thought it might be interesting to
Why Do We Not Believe…?
This week, Charlie discusses the big question…why do we not trust warnings, that we believe to be completely outrageous? Also, why business continuity professionals need to implement this crucial fact into our plans. I recently watched the Jimmy Saville documentary, ‘Jimmy Saville a British Horror Story’ on Netflix, and was fascinated by the idea of
Defining RTOs – Help Needed
This week, Charlie needs your help and advice when it comes to RTOs! Read on to learn more about his questions and thoughts regarding the changing world of business continuity. This week, I will be sharing some of my thoughts regarding RTOs as I am slightly struggling, and hope some readers of the bulletin may
PlanB Consulting – F24 UK 2022
“Protecting people, assets and reputation through effective emergency response and business resilience.” PlanB are delighted to be attending this year’s F24 event in Aberdeen on the 24th June. PlanB and other strategic partners will be hosting exercises across the day for crisis managers, emergency responders and business continuity practitioners. Our Founder and Director, Charlie Maclean-Bristol,
Business Continuity in Saudi Arabia – It’s Good!
In this bulletin, Charlie discusses business continuity in Saudi, where he has been conducting exercises and workshops. This week, I have been in Riyadh delivering a series of workshops, exercises, and business continuity reviews. Therefore, I will be sharing some thoughts on what I have learned. I have been to the country many times before
Working in a Hybrid World – The Future of Incident & Crisis Management Rooms
Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) has been running this past week to raise awareness about the new hybrid work environment and how organisations need to rethink the way they embed, validate, and raise awareness amongst their staff of Business Continuity Plans. The theme for BCAW 2022 is Building Resilience in the Hybrid World and for this
Cyber UK 2022 – What Did We Learn?
Charlie shares his thoughts on the recent CYBERUK 2022 conference. This week Dawn, the Business Development Manager from PlanB Consulting, and I, attended CYBERUK 2022 at the ICC Conference Centre in Newport Wales. Therefore, for today’s bulletin, I will be sharing some of the highlights and my thoughts on the event. The event is the National Cyber
Rota Power Cuts and an Old Incident Revisited – Auckland Power Outage, 1998
This week, Charlie discusses his experience with power cuts in Johannesburg, and previous famous power cuts, such as in Auckland. I am currently in Johannesburg, South Africa, delivering an MSc module to a client from Glasgow University; the module is on “Work-Based Resilience, Continuity and Crisis Management”. After a day of lecturing, I took a
Product Recall: A Checklist of Actions
This week, Charlie creates a checklist for you to follow in case of a product recall situation. This week I carried out a product recall exercise for a pharmaceutical company. I do not claim to be an expert in the finer processes of a product recall, but some of the issues associated with product recalls
Looking After Your People During a Cyber Incident
This week, Charlie discusses why it is so important to look after your staff after a cyber incident. Yesterday, I taught the pilot of a new Cyber Incident Management course. This course is a day-long course which I developed for a client to use internally to ensure that the managers within the organisation have a
Scenario-specific Crisis Level Plans
This week, Charlie discusses why scenario-specific plans are an important addition to business continuity plans. Over the last couple of months, I have been part of the team working on two different standards. Firstly, rewriting the Business Continuity Institutes’, ‘Good Practice Guidelines’ (GPG). Secondly, the ISO 22361, which will be titled ‘Crisis Management – Guidelines
A Conversation about Resilience during the Ukrainian War
Charlie Maclean-Bristol FBCI and Gianluca Riglietti CBCI discuss resilience at a time where the conflict in Ukraine dominates the global scene. During this informal conversation, Charlie and Gianluca address arising issues from the war in Ukraine such as cyber security and supply chain disruptions, as well as discussing related topics including the power of fake
Hints and Tips for Delivering Online Business Continuity Training and Exercises
Find out what tips Charlie has taken away from two years of training delegates online and remotely. It’s around the two year anniversary of the pandemic, therefore, this week I will be sharing some personal points I have learnt during this time. Having worked throughout the whole of the pandemic, I have had to adapt
Managing incidents ‘on the back foot’ – Britain’s poor response to issuing visas to Ukrainian refugees
With the ongoing criticism of the UK’s visa scheme for refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine and the news that only a low number of refugees have been taken in so far, Charlie looks at dynamic risk assessments and the importance of managing incidents proactively, rather than reactively. During wars, I am always uplifted by
Common Crisis Lessons Visible Within the Ukraine Conflict
While in the midst of an international conflict, Charlie comments on the lessons we can all learn from the crisis in Ukraine. I couldn’t go through this week without reflecting on the conflict in Ukraine. What I will be doing is identifying some of the features in the response which are common to many disasters
Crisis Communications – Do You Have a Team?
Charlie lists his suggestions for organising your incident management to include communications roles, and what that may look like. I thought I would leave events in Ukraine to the newspapers and TV this week, and talk about crisis communications teams. Over the last six months, we have been conducting lots of exercises, cyber being one
9 Risks and an Opportunity in Response to Events in Ukraine
With the news today of Russian troops moving into the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk I thought I would share some thoughts with readers of the PlanB Consulting newsletter, on some risks to consider and to plan for. The risk to consider are:1. If you still have employees in the region, have you planned to
Hurry Up and Wait…
Waiting is an underrated skill. In the army, one of the concepts we were always working towards was “hurry up and wait”. The concept is that we should be rapidly moving from one location to the next, usually very early in the morning. Then when we have arrived at the next location, wait around for
Case Study Zouma: Don’t Mess With Cats…
This week, Charlie comments on how Raith Rovers and West Ham (Zouma) have handled their recent PR incidents, and what we as business continuity professionals can take away from that. I am not a big fan of football being a rugby man myself, so I am a little surprised to find myself writing about football
Boris, Watt and the Footballer
Charlie discusses the three biggest headlines dominating the news this past week! He covers topics from Boris to BrewDog and football. Kim and I went to Cheltenham last week to help our daughter settle into her new flat. Since we travelled on Friday, I decided to take a week off writing the bulletin. One thing
February Newsletter
PLANB FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER Cyber Scotland Week: Free PlanB Ransomware Webinar ‘To pay or not to pay?’, that is the question…What should you do after a ransomware cyber incident? Charlie will talk through the pros and cons of paying a ransom and what factors senior managers should take into account when making the decision in his webinar
Travel Disruptions
Travel disruptions seem to be almost commonplace now – between countries closing at a moment’s notice due to pandemic restrictions, to natural disasters like the Tonga volcano eruption halting air travel. As the world ‘reopens’ for business, many of our executives are dusting off their passports and heading out once more, but how prepared is your