A major cyber security exercise kicks off today among the UK's major financial services providers. Monitored by the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority, each of the major banks are expected to test their ability to withstand a cyber attack. Cyber attack has become one of the key threats to the banking system, with daily reports of such incidents, and many more going undetected or unreported.

C-level execs need to clearly define accountability and ownership of business continuity services within an organisation or risk placing their business in a very exposed position, states Paul Gant, head of business continuity managed solutions, at Phoenix. Historically the attitude from organisations towards business continuity has been met with a fail and fix mentality, however, events have forced C-level execs to demand action to ensure their business remains safe and operational.

Less than 40% of organisations are testing and updating their plans annually. This is according to research by IT and work area recovery provider, Phoenix, which believes there may be a perception that business continuity management is a complex, costly and time-consuming process to maintain. To address these inhibitors, the provider has developed an end-to-end managed service designed to meet the entire business continuity process from BIA and plan creation to annual rehearsals and plan maintenance.

xMatters has appointed Laura Meadows as head of business continuity solutions, EMEA. In this newly created role, Meadows will be responsible for delivery of xMatters’ business continuity planning, sales, solutions development and marketing strategies in the region.

As severe weather warnings continue across the UK, organisational productivity is likely to suffer as employees struggle to gain access to key business applications beyond email. This is according to global industry analysts at Ovum, who believe that CIOs that embrace the need for mobile enterprise apps and cloud productivity apps will maintain productivity in the face of disaster, such as the arrival in the UK today of a severe storm, dubbed 'St Jude'.

The revised BS ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and BS ISO/IEC 27002:2013 standards have been published. The standards which help businesses manage information security were first conceived at BSI, the business standards company, in the shape of BS 7799. The 2013 revision of the international standard will enable businesses of all sizes and sectors to accommodate the swift evolution and increased complexity of managing information and the continual challenge that cyber security poses.

The speed at which political instability spreads is now inextricably linked to social media, as disaffected populations globally are increasingly turning to this powerful outlet to drive political demonstrations. This, according to Marsh, means that the ‘rear view mirror’ approach to risk management, which is frequently used by multinationals to forecast risk by examining past events, is no longer sufficient when operating in at-risk countries.

Heavy rainfall that caused flooding across Southern Alberta continues to challenge the area, particularly in Calgary, where the Bow and Elbow Rivers both overtopped their banks. Roads and bridges were washed away; notably, the Trans-Canada Highway was damaged by mudslides west of Calgary. At June 28, power has been restored to much of Calgary, and the Trans-Canada Highway has been repaired west of Calgary.

Attenda been accredited with the new ISO 22301 International Standard for Business Continuity Management. The company has been working for the past twelve months to align its business to the ISO 22301 standard, carrying out detailed assessments of the organisation and technology elements and processes, including a number of scenario based exercises with its crisis management team.

Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to control their supply chains at a time when the cost of failure is higher than ever, according to Airmic. Case studies examined during the research included the grounding of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, Thailand floods, Nestlé's Kit Kat attacked by Greenpeace for using unsustainable supplies of palm oil, Mattel recall of millions of toys.

In response to this week’s demonstrations running up to the G8 annual meeting, the Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications group (CSSC) has issued the following protective security points, which summarise guidance from a Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) publication on the same.

SunGard Availability Services has signed a five year contract with Serco Group that will see the business continuity and managed services provider take responsibility for Serco’s UK IT infrastructure and undertake a technology transformation. Serco will also be moving a portion of its current estate to a virtualised, managed hosted model, using dedicated SunGard-managed platforms.

Drew Gibson has joined Atos Consulting Business Continuity and Resilience team from Canary Wharf Group, where he was business continuity and risk manager. Gibson joins the Atos team to lead the development of its crisis management offering and provide a range of planning, training and exercising for their clients.

The winners of the 2013 Business Continuity Awards were announced last night at a Gala Dinner and ceremony hosted by comedian Marcus Brigstocke at the London Hilton on Park Lane. Among the winners, USAA, Camelot, HP, Zurich and the Cross-Sector Safety & Security Communications Partnership. Read on for a full list of the stars from the night...

A new report by UNISDR and PwC warns large multinationals’ dependencies on international supply chains, infrastructure and markets poses a systemic risk to ‘business as usual’. Ban Ki Moon has described economic losses from disasters as “out of control”, after a separate report was released (GAR13) showed mounting losses this century from catastrophic events topping US$2.5trn.