Outages plague US stock market

Hardware faults - the bigg.est cause of downtime A recent report has shown that hardware faults have caused more downtime in thelastflveyezustban themorednaarticand highprofBecauscsof disruption such as M,W=d floods. DisasWr recovery company, Comdisco which compiled the report is advising companies to revise their requirements for business continuity as a result. The company commented that in the past many companies have assessed their need for a disaster recovery plan by weighing up the likelihood of a disaster caused by a bomb or other dramatic event. In reality, the market clearly demonstrates from the report find-

ings that companies should be focusing their attentions much closer to home. In the UK, 65% of disruptions were attributed to hardware faults requiring an average of 8.5 days of support and 15% were found to be due to power outage requiring an average of 5.2 days support from the disaster recovery company. Software faults caused 9% of disasters and required more support than any other disruption needing on

average 10 days of support per incident. “You cannot predict when a computer failure will occur, or its cause, but you can plan for such an occasion and be prepared if it happens. Companies are growing increasingly reliant on technology but are failing to realize the fallibility of computer systems and the resulting problems if systems fail”, commented Nigel Ghent, Marketing Manager with Comdisco.

CM warn of the risks involved with E-mail A new booklet from the Computer Security Institute Tbe CSI’s

ManugerS Guide to E-mail Security details

the risks involved in the use of E-mail and offers some protective measures that can be put in place. Careless use df E-mail exposes organizations to such vulnerabilities as disclosure of trade secrets, character assassination, violation of privacy and other

issues that could result in corporate liability. The new booklet offers checklists, sample policies, and a list of resources that can be used to design an effective E-mail security policy and to increase greater enduser awareness of the problem. Free copies of this guide as well as others in the series covering Internet security: tele-

phone communications fraud, computer security awareness and computer viruses can be obtained from the CSI.

For further details contact: Patrice Rapalus, Director, CSI, 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94 IO 7, USA; tel: + I 415 905 23 IO; E-mail: prapalu@ mfr.corn; electro nit versions availabie at URL- http:// www.gocsi.com Computer

outy)rcl pbgie..US &#a& m@rket Two computer fiilures in as many mo@hs !zzve caused shutdoof the Nasdaq Stock -t’s automatic uad@@.spacars in the US. The##Wns ilff the latest in a m run&g series of’ gIit&es that haWe arisen due &I a brad upgrade of’ the NW coqutcr systcms..d&d~it hmWing the mar&‘+z+d growth. In July 1994, sotiarc problems kti t0 shutdowns ofaslongastwoandahalf hours. In 1995’the computer systems s&Wed to keep pace w&h the record tradiq volumes fming Naskiq to shut down its automated trad&ig sjrsWms to manage the load. &U&ma& computer OatgQ exacerbated the problora cktc computer faihgt kd to a one hour shut down and mayhem on the trading floor. Another last@ a quarter of an hour prevented Nasdaq’s 500 member firms from updating prices at which they were willing to buy and sell stocks. As a result of the fifteen r&&We outage Nasdaq also suspended its Small Order Execution System (SOB) and its Selcctnet tradiq tg%t,cnr which rcmained 0W ‘OB action for the rest of tfhc drip’s trading. The seeemingly small shutdown ted to significant disruptions to Nasdaq’s trading - the SOES accounts i;or Sas of the volume on Na&aq aad abws small investors’~te execution of ordots,of 500 share:, or less, and Wectnct accounts fat an additional 7% volume and is intended to permit broker dealers to negotiate and execute trades among themselves.

Audit Update l January 1996 0 1996, Elsevier Science Ltd. E