As security professionals you all try to anticipate the "bad" things that can happen to your businesses and head them off. It's called business resiliency, disaster preparedness, or business continuity. But sometimes it doesn't matter what you do because forces beyond your control can have a devastating impact that results in the demise of your organization.
We've all seen the impact that the sub-prime mortgage market has had on the economy and the resultant impact on our businesses. If you're a mortgage lender you're intimately familiar with it. While many of these banks and institutions will pull through this crisis just fine, we saw last week how something completely out of left field could destroy a multi-billion dollar business in just days. In late June, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) sent letter to several regulatory agencies raising concerns about Indymac Bank's solvency (Indymac's CSO, Boulton Fernando, has contributed to CSO). The Senator's office then supplied those letters to the media. The result was a run on the bank to the tune of $1.3 billion that forced federal regulators to seize the bank. So much for their business continuity.
Of course, Senator Schumer denies any responsibility for the bank's demise, but the Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision blamed Schumer directly saying that his comments gave Indymac a "heart attack".
My only real thought to share with you today is that you should all be on the lookout for that "heart attack" that may be coming your way. We all plan for the worst, but sometimes we find that our worst isn't really the "worst".
