Business continuity also means preparing for human error | 08.14.2007 | 06:13:53 | Views: 5862 | ID: August 14 '07: Despite headline grabbing scenarios which push most managers to prepare their businesses for a disaster, InformationWeek reported that most of the time, the greatest threat to continuity of operations is simple human error. According to experts, about 80 percent of all IT outages and failures are caused by employee mistakes. Bob Vieraitis, the vice president of marketing for change control software vendor Solidcore Systems said in an interview with InformationWeek, that as computer operating systems, and their networks become more complex, the greater are the chances of a network failure caused by someone who is not skilled in managing the technology. When complex systems go down - whether by human mistake, natural disaster or a terrorist attack, rebuilding can be slow and costly. Also, if the system is altered it is necessary to prepare by setting "policies that dictate what changes are permitted, who's allowed to make these changes, and when these changes can be made. Further, these changes must be tested and approved before the changed systems are put back online." In 2006, AT&T released a survey after the Katrina and Rita disasters which looked at the state of the business community and its preparedness level as well as the belief in the private sector about how important it was to be prepared. Much of the results found a great anxiety among businesses about being prepared, yet there was little done to mitigate any type of disruption. Then in May, AT&T released another survey which found that about 30 percent of all businesses in the country are still not prepared for a worst case scenario," a press release read.
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