Paul Wallis's Page

In addressing, “Cyber Security and Global Interdependence”, Dave Clemente of Chatham House discusses the ‘security implications emerging at the intersection of cyberspace and infrastructure’.  One of his conclusions is that,

“Meeting these security challenges requires better shared understanding of what is critical between those who protect an organization and those who set its strategic…

On New Year’s Eve 2012, late afternoon, customers of three of the UK’s largest banks were unable to withdraw cash or use internet banking - some complaining that account balances were incorrectly showing ‘00.00’.

There can’t be many worse times for such a “glitch” to occur, and the (further) damage to those banks’ reputations must have been considerable. The financial cost was also considerable with, for example, Lloyds Bank setting aside £125 million to “compensate…

During July we attended the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for the formation and launch of the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) Private Sector Preparatory Group.

The group was created by the FSB in response to a call from the leaders of the G20 countries to proceed with development of a, “unique identification system for parties to financial transactions.” […

 “Assets will always fail at some point, and with any asset failure there is a chain of consequential loss which is triggered by an originating event.”

Last year, I discussed the vulnerability of the modern city to interruptions in the various critical supply flows that keep it going.

When key flows – water, electricity, natural gas or sewage – are…