Ransomware attack: Who ya gonna call, Mike?
This week I share some key learning points on ransomware negotiation. This week I am going to share with you what I learned from speaking to Mike Fowler, VP of Intelligence Services at GroupSense, a specialist cyber response company. One of the services they offer is ransomware negotiation and I thought in this bulletin I would share
The difference between a generic response and contingency plans
This week I look at the differences between a generic response and contingency plans. This week has been very busy for me, and amongst other tasks, I have been conducting a debrief for a multinational company on their response to date on COVID-19. I have also been helping another organisation rewrite their plans, so I
Hackney Council’s Hack: A communications playbook of good practice?
This article has been published on Linkedin! https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hackney-councils-cyber-incident-communications-good-charlie
Cyber Ransoms – Should I Pay?
This week I discuss the possible benefits of paying a cyber ransom and whether this is illegal. Legality I thought this week I would do a bit of research on a subject that has intrigued me for a while, which is the legality of paying cyber ransoms. In news articles about firms who have been a victim
What is doxing, and should I be worried about it?
This week I look at doxing, the different ways it can affect your organisation and how you should prepare. Should I be worried about it? The short answer is yes. The long answer is also yes, but after seeing the word in a cyber article I was reading this week, I thought I would do a
Marks out of 100 for the NZ Stock Exchange Cyber Incident Response
This week I look at at the recent cyber incident involving New Zealand’s Stock Exchange and marks their response out of 100. I thought this week I would write about an incident which I have been following for the last month, the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the New Zealand stock exchange, which took
My Thoughts On Online Exercises
In today’s bulletin, I share some thoughts on conducting exercises online. This week I conducted an online exercise and it got me thinking about what the benefits and downsides are of running exercises online: It is very easy to conduct one as most incident management teams are virtual at the moment and responding to COVID-19,
Logging in a Digital Age
In today’s bulletin, I discuss how logging incidents has changed in the shift to remote working and online meetings. “If it wasn’t written down, it didn’t happen” – Michael Mansfield QC At BC Training and PlanB Consulting, we have done a lot of Loggist Training, both before and after COVID-19. A couple of days ago I
What types of incident is business continuity meant to deal with?
This week I discuss why having a clear scope of the incidents that business continuity is designed to deal with is important within your organisation. Scope of incidents Yesterday I had a good chat with a member of the Business Continuity Board, who is also an FBCI and has been involved in writing many of the ISO
Dealing with emotion in crisis communications – the UK results fiasco
Following the release of A-level and GCSE results in the UK, I discuss how to counter an incident which has invoked a lot of emotion. The algorithm seemed flawed This week my daughter Phoebe was one of the students anxiously awaiting her GCSE exam results. You couldn’t fail to see the government flailing around trying to
What types of incident is business continuity meant to deal with?
This week I discuss why having a clear scope of the incidents that business continuity is designed to deal with is important within your organisation. Scope of incidents Yesterday I had a good chat with a member of the Business Continuity Board, who is also an FBCI and has been involved in writing many of the ISO
The Effects of Stress on Incident Management Teams
This week I look at stress and the impact it can have on teams and individuals during incidents. I am busy reading a paper by Mica Endsley titled ‘Towards a Theory of Situational Awareness in Dynamic Systems’, which I have been looking forward to reading for a while! I find the whole process of incident
A Model for Situational Awareness
This week I shares a model of situational awareness from the Endsley paper and discusses how this can be applied to incident management. This week I carried out my first Live Online Advanced Incident Response and Crisis Management public training course, and I decided to add some information from the Endsley paper I was reading on situational
Achieving situational awareness during an incident
Following last week’s bulletin, I share some ideas on how to implement and carry out situational awareness when responding to an incident. Last week we talked about the process of situational awareness during an incident and how all the activities come together to achieve good awareness of the situation we are managing an incident within. Today I
The Effects of Stress on Incident Management Teams
This week I look at stress and the impact it can have on teams and individuals during incidents. I am busy reading a paper by Mica Endsley titled ‘Towards a Theory of Situational Awareness in Dynamic Systems’, which I have been looking forward to reading for a while! I find the whole process of incident
Building an Incident Team Competency Framework
Charlie outlines his ideas on building an incident team competency framework. This week I thought I would share some ideas I have been developing on incident management. They are not fully solidified yet, so I would welcome any thoughts or comments on what I have written. There are many lessons organisations will learn from COVID-19,
Why we are entering the most dangerous period of coronavirus.
Why, for many organisations, we are entering the most dangerous period of coronavirus. This week Charlie discusses why we are entering the most dangerous period of coronavirus for many businesses. In the first few months of the coronavirus outbreak, everyone was ‘in it together’ and people understood why organisations were not able to deliver their
The Business Continuity Manager’s role in the recovery phase of coronavirus
This week I discuss the role of the Business Continuity Manager in dealing with the recovery phrase of coronavirus. Many of the lockdown restrictions have been lifted and are moving on apace, even in Scotland we are able to do more today and even more on Monday, although I haven’t quite worked out what that is.
COVID-19 – A massive failure of risk management?
This week I look at risk management in response to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and Black Lives Matter movement. I wanted to write about risk management and what I perceive is a massive failure of the process and implementation in ensuring that organisations were ready for a pandemic. The continuing momentum of the Black Lives
Dominic Cummings – A crisis management case study
This week I discuss the crisis communications lessons to be learnt from Dominic Cummings’ recent ‘rule-breaking’ incident in lockdown. As the ‘Dominic Cummings Affair’ is coming to an end I thought I would comment on what we can learn about crisis communications from the circus surrounding his visit to Durham, during lockdown. I think it
Marks out of 100 for Easyjet’s Cyber Incident Response
Charlie scores Easyjet’s response to their recent cyber attack out of 100. “Thankfully, we now live in a world where it is accepted that data breaches happen, and organisations are more comfortable disclosing that they have been victim to an attack. However, with this welcome move away from victim blaming, organisations are now being judged
20/20 Vision: Comments on Exercise Cygnus (UK’s pandemic exercise in 2016)
Today Charlie discusses how Exercise Cygnus, the UK’s pandemic exercise in 2016, holds up against the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19. UK the “most prepared country”? The UK government has had a lot of criticism in the press about them being unprepared to respond to COVID-19, despite the 2019 Global Health Security Index Report in which
Crisis Communications – Skype to the rescue
This week Charlie looks at an article from The Times, ‘Welcome to The Skype Pandemic’, which discusses how journalists and experts tuning in to interviews from their homes is affecting our news consumption. A team of Kim, Gillian and I have been teaching the CBCI course this week and I was thinking of talking about
Coronavirus Response: The Peak-End Rule
This week I discuss the psychological heuristic ‘peak-end rule’ and why this is important for planning your company’s recovery from COVID-19. Hope you have all had a nice bank holiday weekend at home! This week I wanted to look at how an incident is managed at the end, and whether it leaves a disproportionate impression
Panic buying toilet roll – lesson identified or learned?
This week I look at panic buying and what lessons we can identify from the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak to help prevent this in the future. When I talk to Jacqui Semple, Head of the EPS and Resilience Lead at Angus Council, about incidents and the lessons learned from them, she always corrects me by saying