Fergus Cloughley's Page

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the finance industry is working on a number of regulatory initiatives, including Solvency II, Basel III and Dodd-Frank.

Fundamentally, the aim of these various initiatives is to reduce risk, be it insolvency risk in the EU insurance companies, liquidity risk in banking, or systemic risk across the U.S / global financial sector.

One of the…

The other day, a little behind the times, I watched the fourth of the series of ‘Die Hard’ movies.

Detective Lieutenant John McClane had his hands full yet again, battling devious cyber criminals in Washington D.C.

The bad guys set out to ultimately do a bit of electronic money pilfering, and as part of their cunning plan they disrupt some of the computer-reliant critical networks that typically support a modern city.  By hacking into systems and interrupting…

As 2012 draws to a close, businesses of all kinds, in all parts of the world, continue to suffer ‘data flow disasters’.

Here at OBASHI, “data flow disaster” is the term we use for an event where a flow of data is interrupted or compromised, so that there is a negative impact on those who use or interact with that flow of data.

Here are a few examples of such ‘disasters'.  In no particular order:

UK - Prior to the 2012 Olympics, the…

One of the most famous works of Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns, is “To a Mouse”.

During 1785, on a bleak winter’s day, Burns addressed a field mouse whose home he accidentally turned up with his plough.

In the poem, the bard praises the ‘foresight’ of the mouse in building the ‘cozie’ nest in advance of the freezing weather, while there was still good grass to do so.

But, ultimately, one of Burns’ conclusions is that, although we can…