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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/31/eu_cyberattack_strategy/
Which disaster were you thinking of?
Posted in Enterprise Security , 31st March 2009 12:07 GMT
Free whitepaper – Lower security risks and costs by minimizing the time to protection
The EU is pushing the development of a strategy to protect Europe from cyber-attacks and disruptions.
The guidelines – which amount to a disaster recovery procedures for nations instead of individual corporate entities – are designed to cover incidences such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, hackers, rupture of submarine telecom cables or hardware failure.
Recent cyber-attacks on Estonia and Georgia caused considerable disruption to the smooth running of government and business services, focusing attention on the problem of keeping internet-connected systems up and running when disaster strikes.
Cyber-attacks that accompanied civil disturbance in Estonia means that the country’s parliament had to shut down its email system for 12 hours, while two major Estonian banks were forced to suspend internet services.
The EU Commission points out that the smooth running of IT and communications systems is becoming more important to the economy in general. For example, e-commerce transactions amounted to 11 per cent of total turnover of EU companies in 2007. Three in four (77 per cent) of businesses accessed banking services via internet and two-thirds (65 per cent) of firms used online public services.
Communications networks also play a key role in infrastructure services such as energy distribution, water supply and transportation.
Readiness in dealing with potential disruption varies widely across EU member states. The EU Commission is seeking to use its influence to persuade member states to make the EU as a whole "more prepared for and resistant to cyber-attacks and disruptions".
It wants businesses and public administrations to consider five factors in developing a disaster recovery strategy:
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CNN, 3/31/09: TRUCK OVERTURNS, KILLING 23 IN INDIA
Twenty-three pilgrims died and more than 70 were injured as a
truck carrying them overturned in north India, police said
Tuesday.
…. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/03/31/india.truck.wreck/index.html
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CNN, 3/31/09: HUNDREDS FEARED DEAD OFF COAST OF LIBYA
Hundreds of people are feared dead after high winds and heavy
seas capsized boats carrying African migrants heading for Europe
off the coast of Libya.
…. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/03/31/libya.boat.sinks/index.html
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/30/pistachio.recall/
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A California food processing plant is voluntarily recalling up to 1 million pounds of roasted pistachio products that may have been contaminated with salmonella, the Food and Drug Administration announced Monday.
Salmonella strains were found last week during routine test by Kraft Foods, one company that purchased the nuts.
The nuts came from Setton Farms in Terra Bella, California, about 75 miles south of Fresno. They were largely distributed in 2,000-pound containers to food wholesalers who would then package them for resale or incorporate them as ingredients in other products, such as ice cream and trail mix.
No illnesses have been linked to this case, said Dr. David Acheson, FDA’s associate commissioner. But salmonella strains were found last week during routine test by Kraft Foods, one of about three dozen companies that purchase pistachios from Setton Farms, he said. Kraft notified the FDA on March 24.
Setton Farms did not immediately respond to CNN requests for comment.
Acheson emphasized that unlike the recent case of salmonella-tainted peanut butter, this recall was not prompted by an sickness outbreak, saying the decision was a "proactive" move. He said the FDA has received two recent complaints, from the East and West coasts, from people who say they became ill after eating pistachio products, but a link to Setton Farms has not been confirmed, he said.
The FDA is advising consumers not to eat any pistachio products, but not to throw them out, either, because additional recalls are likely and having products that could be turned in would allow for easier tracing of contamination. The agency is setting up a Web site to update the public.
Dr. Jeff Farrar, head of the California health department’s food and drug division, said it’s likely that the roasted pistachios will be found in a wide variety of products. He noted that Setton Farms is the second-largest pistachio processor in the nation.
Raw pistachios are roasted to a temperature that should kill salmonella, Acheson said. Because the roasted products tested positive for salmonella suggest cross-contamination with raw products.
Acheson added that the Setton Farms recall is related to the one announced Friday by Kroger, a grocery store chain with stores in 31 states. Kroger recalled Private Selection shelled pistachios from its retail stores because of possible salmonella contamination.
Kroger, in a statement Friday, said no illnesses have been reported in connection with the product.
In February, Kroger was among retailers that recalled peanut products tied to the Peanut Corporation of America, a Virginia-based company accused by the FDA of knowingly selling peanut butter and peanut paste that was contaminated with salmonella.
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http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR640/
The Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI) was created in 2004 to help the nation’s largest metropolitan areas develop the ability to provide life-saving medications in the event of a large-scale biological terrorist attack or naturally occurring disease outbreak. In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked RAND to provide an initial evaluation of the impact of the Cities Readiness Initiative on awardees’ readiness and capability to conduct mass countermeasure dispensing above and beyond what would be the case without the program. The subsequent study drew on available empirical evidence, including data from the Technical Assistance Review, a CDC-administered assessment of jurisdictions’ capabilities in 12 core functional areas associated with countermeasure distribution and dispensing, as well as qualitative data collected through discussions with personnel involved with countermeasure dispensing in nine metropolitan areas (both CRI awardees and non-CRI jurisdictions). The evaluation showed that, overall, CRI awardees had benefited from the program’s preparedness guidance and scenario focus and that the program had strengthened or encouraged the development of partnerships with other stakeholders. The program also encouraged a variety of changes to awardees’ training plans and had spillover effects on non-CRI sites. However, this evaluation did not address questions of how the documented benefits compare to the program costs.
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http://www.foodproductdesign.com/hotnews/vilsack-asks-for-greater-food-recall-powers.html
| Vilsack Asks for Greater Food Recall Powers |
| Posted on: 03/30/2009 |
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WASHINGTON—As reported by FLEXNEWS , U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is asking the White House’s new food-safety panel to consider giving the USDA stronger food recall powers to minimize future disease outbreaks. "I think we need to have a single philosophy governing our approach to food safety,” he said. “Secondly, I do think it’s important to have a better system of communicating.” |
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British police arrest five on suspicion of terrorism (Roundup)
By DPA
Mar 30, 2009, 15:23 GMT
London – Three men and two women, aged between 16 and 25, have been arrested in Britain under the Terrorism Act, just days before Thursday’s summit meeting of Group of 20 (G20) nations, police said Monday.
Police said the arrests were made over the weekend in the port city of Plymouth, south-west Britain, after a man was caught painting graffiti on a wall.
However, police would neither confirm nor deny media reports that the arrests were linked to demonstrations planned in London against the G20 summit later this week.
Spokesman Netherton said a number of imitation firearms, devices which were made up of fireworks and ’some literature relating to political ideology’ were found in house searches.
The devices were ‘probably not lethal,’ said Netherton, adding: ‘Fireworks do have an explosive component to them but of a minor nature.’
The suspects would continue to be held while further searches were carried out.
However, police stressed that the group was not linked to ‘any particular religious group’ but centered around ‘political activity involving British nationals.’
British police have said they face a ‘huge challenge’ from anti-globalization protestors expected to join demonstrations in the British capital later this week.
Police fear the rallies, on April 1 and 2, will be hijacked by anarchists intent on sparking violence and riots, with thousands of hardline protestors expected to fly in from abroad.
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http://www.reflector.com/news/if-it-happened-today-growth-increases-disaster-potential-517434.html
By Ginger Livingston
The Daily Reflector
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Hurricanes, not tornadoes, were on Leslie Arnold’s mind when her family moved to the Eastern Pines community nearly three years ago.
Arnold knew about the devastation produced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Hurricane Fran in Raleigh and Hurricane Andrew in Florida. Her husband, John, was a member of a National Guard unit that provided recovery relief when flooding from Hurricane Floyd swept the Pitt County in 1999.
“I studied the flood plain maps,” Arnold, a nurse with the Edgecombe County Health Department, said. When she saw the Eastern Pines area was a quick drive into Greenville, but out of the city limits, she was interested.
“I kept asking (the real estate agent), ‘You’re sure it’s not in the flood plain,’” she said.
What Arnold didn’t know was that 25 years ago the Eastern Pines area was devastated by an F4 tornado that killed six people and another three in Ayden and Winterville. The tornado was one of 22 that swept North and South Carolinas killing a total of 57 people and injuring more than 1,200. The storm is one of the deadliest disasters to hit the state.
Since then, she and thousands like her have moved into the new houses, trailers and apartments that now pepper the once far more rural landscape where the killer tornado hit.
Based on local recollections of the storm’s path, the Pitt County Planning Department estimates the number of residential structures there today has more than doubled from 3,161 in 1984 to 6,690 today. The number of people has increased as much, from 7,147 to 14,837. That’s outpaced the countywide increase of 96,164 to 156,081.
That growth likely means greater devastation if similar storms were to strike today. But officials said lessons learned from the ‘84 storm and other events including Hurricane Floyd have better prepared residents for the possibility and the response.
First response
Pitt and other counties damaged by the 1999 floods have taken actions to lessen the severity of problems caused by hurricanes and flooding by identifying areas where they strike and requiring special building practices or preventing building from taking place.
Mitigating a tornado isn’t as easy, said Noel Lee said, Pitt County’s emergency management director, because it’s difficult to predict where the next storm will occur.
“There’s probably not a lot different today except there are a lot more homes, a lot more people and the potential is greater for devastation,” Lee said.
“You would still rely on your first responders, you fire departments, EMS, law enforcement and your faith-based organizations would assist afterwards.”
Pitt County has an ample supply of first responders, Lee said, but when dealing with an event as large as the ‘84 tornadoes, Pitt and most counties would need outside help.
“You would hope community would still come together and neighbor help neighbor, which I think in a situation like that, they would,” Lee said.
More than 150 people were injured during the 1984 tornado, so Pitt County Memorial Hospital nurses joined EMS at D.H. Conley High School and formed a triage center to assess who needed to be hospitalized.
The hospital now has a different response to such emergencies, Kiplan Clemmons, director of emergency management and emergency preparedness, said.
When incidents like tornadoes strike, the injured will go to the hospital on their own instead of waiting for an ambulance, Clemmons said. Staff needs to be on hand to treat that influx. Also, it’s best to treat the injured at the hospital because that’s where the equipment is located, he said. County emergency personnel have to request assistance before any hospital personnel is sent into a disaster area, Clemmons said. It can only happen if the hospital’s own staffing needs are filled.
The hospital dispatched doctors and nurses to shelters in areas isolated by the 1999 floodwaters, Clemmons said, because people couldn’t get to the hospital or other medical facilities. Even then, the hospital waited for county emergency management officials to request the teams.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, medical staff from Pitt County Memorial Hospital established a mobile hospital in Mississippi as part of North Carolina’s State Medical Assistance Team.
If similar devastation occurred in this region, the local team wouldn’t be dispatched into the community because they would be needed at the hospital, Clemmons said. Instead, people from outside the region would be brought in to assist.
Recovery
Communication was a problem following the tornado and during the 1999 floods because the county’s law enforcement agencies, fire departments and other emergency responders had incompatible radio systems, Bobby Joyner, retired emergency services director for Pitt County, said.
The agencies could not speak directly to one another; they relied on central dispatchers to relay messages while workers in the field answered emergency calls.
The communications issue is being resolved. Greenville police and fire-rescue, the sheriff’s office and highway patrol are all on a statewide radio frequency and can communicate directly, Lee said. The county’s volunteer fire departments and EMS squads aren’t on that system yet, he said, but the county purchased a system that would temporarily connect all emergency responders during disasters.
First responders also have more disaster preparedness training, Lee said.
“One of the biggest things we are looking for in situations like this is the safety and welfare of our first responders,” Lee said. Rescue workers know if they are injured, that takes resources from helping people suffering from the disaster.
Greenville has a state-recognized urban search and rescue team that is trained in securing search areas. Hospital staff practice handling mass causalities once or twice a year, Clemmons said.
The county employs an incident command system where representatives from various agencies work out of one location directing rescue and recovery efforts, he said.
Getting help after disasters has become easier, Joyner said.
After the tornado, a field office was set up where people could go to fill out paperwork. With Floyd, people could contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency by telephone and provide information over the line.
“Most people can work out access to a phone. But a lot of time people don’t have access to transportation, and then you have to travel halfway across the county and stand in a line all day long,” Joyner said.
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COMMENT: If you haven’t checked this out yet….do so! You won’t be disappointed! Gregg Lord and the gang at the George Washington University Office of Homeland Security did a phenomenal job!
| Welcome! Zero Hour: America’s Medic is a single player point of view serious game designed to allow you the opportunity to build on and apply your skills as a medical first responder within a virtual environment. Performance objectives for this game were derived from the Target Capabilities List (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, September 2007) and include activities relating to On-Site Incident Management and Emergency Triage and Pre-Hospital Treatment. To access the catalog game options within this site, please register by creating a username and password with the system or Login to the right. When you register you will be charged a small fee ($14.95) for the download. If you are interested in purchasing multiple downloads of Zero Hour, please complete this form. Before attempting to install the game, it is highly recommended that you: Developed by: Funded by: Zero Hour Technical Support is available. |
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