Have you mastered the art of beekeeping, guitar and quilting? Then why not try blockchain. Despite the wide variety of general interest topics for which the Dummies series may be best known, the vast collection of ‘how to’ guides boast numerous titles providing in depth analysis on a variety of business topics – including a few for risk professionals. As some readers will know, along with the Cabinet Office and the Business Continuity Institute, CIR was consulted in the preparation for the series’ Business Continuity guide. Now, the beloved brand has turned its attention to blockchain.

The BCI launched its annual Cyber Resilience Report earlier this month, once again highlighting the global increase in cyber vulnerabilities. The top three risks were found to be phishing, malware and social engineering, with new entrant ransomware only just making the top five. But will new legislation like the GDPR, state of the art anti-hacking software or staff security awareness training stop all future attacks? Not on their own.

Disaster recovery and business continuity services company, Databarracks has announced the appointment of Mike Osborne, former managing director of business continuity at Daisy Group, as new chairman. In this role, Osborne will work with the senior management, with a remit focused on driving business growth as well as helping to expand and broaden the firm’s existing recovery and business continuity service offerings.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) has claimed that climate change is greatly increasing the likelihood of devastating wildfires, such as the one that caused such devastation across Portugal last weekend but is now reported to be under control.

Many organisations do not devote enough attention to mission-critical applications when creating disaster recovery plans, and a new report has concluded that one of the biggest reasons is the ‘resiliency perception gap’ - the gap between executives’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their resiliency strategies and how successful these plans actually are at protecting against application outages or downtime.

Aviation insurers have launched a model contract continuation clause to ensure policies remain in place after Britain leaves the European Union. The wording has been published by the Aviation Insurance Clauses Group (AICG), a group established in 2005 by the International Underwriting Association of London and the Lloyd’s Market Association.

The Business Continuity Awards winners were revealed last night at a Gala Dinner and Ceremony held in London's Mayfair. This year's Lifetime Achievement award was presented to Mike Osborne; the Business Continuity Manager of the Year, Sean Deadman of Barclays; and Best Contribution to Sungard Availability Services. More...

A salary benchmarking study conducted by the Business Continuity Institute points to a considerable gender pay gap within the business continuity industry. The institute's study of over 1,000 business continuity and resilience professionals sought to discover the remuneration packages that those in the industry receive, including salary, bonus and other benefits. The report provides deep dives into regional specifics for Australasia, Europe, the US and the UK.

Even five years ago the term ‘organisational resilience’ was heard relatively infrequently; now it inevitably crops up in any conversation amongst business continuity, security, risk management and other professionals tasked with ensuring that the physical and operational integrity of an organisation is maintained no matter what challenges it may face.

Globalisation and trade challenges highlighted by the US election and Brexit referendum usher in a year of heightened strategic uncertainty on both sides of the pond – difficult topics which have become impossible to avoid and, according to Control Risks’ CEO Richard Fenning, may even make 2017 “one of the most difficult years for business’ strategic decision making since the end of the Cold War”. Such high levels of complexity and uncertainty will force boards to undertake comprehensive reviews of their approaches to risk management. Risk professionals at the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) echo this sentiment, citing political risk among their chief concerns for the coming year.

The newest entrant to the UK business continuity market is opening the doors to its first work area recovery centre. The new, 4000 sq ft Crossharbour Crisis Management Centre is the first independent recovery centre to open in the UK in over a decade, and was designed and built specifically to meet the needs of London businesses.

Crises Control has released two new modules on its platform and a new business solution. A new Task Manager Module allows the delegation and tracking of completed tasks and the creation of complex task work flows using predecessor logic; while the iSOP Wizard module allows users to quickly create their own bespoke business continuity action plans.

UKCloud has announced the launch a self-service replication and recovery solution powered by software provider, Zerto. Disaster Recovery to the Cloud is based on a pay-as-you-use cloud model; organisations can select applications that are crucial for the provision of public services, and therefore only pay for the disaster recovery or business continuity that is needed.

The shortlist for the 2017 Business Continuity Awards has been announced. Now in their 19th year, the Business Continuity Awards recognise those business continuity, security, resilience and risk professionals whose innovative strategies and industry savvy make them stand out above the rest, organised by CIR Magazine. The winners will be announced at a Gala Dinner on 8 June 2017 at the London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square.

Cyber attack is once again the top threat perceived by businesses, according to research published this week by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) in association with BSI (British Standards Institution). Eighty eight per cent of organisations are concerned about the possibility of a cyber attack. The threat of a data breach follows (81%), while unplanned IT and telecom outage remains third greatest concern (80%).