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Narrator: He spent 27 years as an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and now Christopher Giovino is in charge of the Forensic Analysis practice with Dempsey Partners, a risk management consulting and investigative firm based in the United States. He explains to ILSTV how the skills he learned in the DEA transfer to his role in the public sector.

Christopher Giovino: The back story of what I used to do for a living was a combination of a lot of undercover work; anti-money laundering work; recently fighting narco terrorism, especially down in South America and over in South West Asia and over in the Middle East, vis-a-vis either heroin or cocaine trafficking, and the movement of dollars, Euros, gold.

And just down and dirty investigative skills. As you come up as a new agent, if you are paying attention at all and you are working with the right people. And for me, working with the right people was actually working with New York City police officers, or LA County people. I mean people who typically most agents will not work with, you learn a lot. You become a better agent, a better investigator for it.

It’s a vastly different set of skills most people have. It’s a combination of skills and I think perspectives, and contacts. DEA in our country, the US, is really the only law enforcement agency that is technically allowed to work overseas. And when I say ‘work’ I mean operationally. The FBI is outside the US but they are collecting information and evidence. They’re creating liaisons wherever they go, they’re doing a really, really good job. But DEA agents are actually working undercover, doing surveillances, jumping out of helicopters, hitting the jungles, developing informants and contacts.

That line of contacts is really important in my business as I work globally. It’s ultra important up here in Canada. When I find the need to reach out for a strong law enforcement partner on behalf of my client, that might be someone from Vancouver PD, or from the Ontario Provincial Police, or Quebec. You really need to know who to call and that’s a skill set most people don’t have. My clients find that amazing. They typically pick up the phone and call the wrong agency and then they pay for it later.

There’s a work ethic most people don’t recognize and I think it’s shared universally by most federal agencies; the Mounties for you would be the closest thing, and that is the need to work until the job is done. It’s a salaried position. You don’t get paid by the hour. If you work ten days in a row, three weeks in a row, thirty hours in a row, it doesn’t matter. You go home when you are done. You don’t go home at the end of eight hours. It doesn’t happen. If you are not ready for that, then get out.

I think as you cross over into the private sector you know it’s not really required, but you can’t change. I can’t change, and the expectations I have of my people, they’re not very happy with but  I expect the same out of them.

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In the last two months, three Canadian churches have been damaged by fire and Ecclesiastical Insurance says that in each case, an electrical fire was deemed the likely cause.

The three damaged churches – one in Port Alberni, B.C., one in Stoney Creek, Ontario and one on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula – have highlighted the risk that older buildings have.

Colin Robertson, VP Risk Control at Ecclesiastical Insurance, points out that electrical issues are among the leading causes of fires in North America and that older churches – whether they were built with wood frames or as masonry buildings with wood joisted roofs – are particularly vulnerable. “Faulty wiring, overloaded electrical circuits, and improperly grounded equipment are among the hazards that pose significant threats,” he says. “Unless they are updated and regularly maintained, electrical installations in older churches can’t handle today’s increased demands.”

Robertson says that in some cases, electrical systems are simply overburdened.

“A professional inspection of incoming service, breaker panels and fuse boards, and wiring and grounding,” he emphasizes, “is a critical first step to identifying the risks and avoiding potential disasters. In addition to inspections, professional electricians should undertake electrical updates and repairs.”

Ecclesiastical also advises faith customers to create a checklist and conduct regularly scheduled inspections, looking at such areas as:

• The number of appliances – computers, battery chargers, coffee machines, and electric heaters – plugged into outlets. Too many will overload the circuits and cause the installation to overheat.
• Older wiring that may be damaged due to insulation breakdown, mechanical damage, and rodents exposing live wires through extensive chewing. Any combustible material in the vicinity should be removed immediately and the damaged wiring replaced.
• Overuse and misuse of temporary wiring or extension cords. For example, extension cords should not pass through walking areas, nor should carpets or furniture rest on them.
• Outlets and switches that may be cracked or broken. If they are hot to the touch, it may indicate a problem.

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The Japanese government’s worst-case scenario at the height of the nuclear crisis last year warned that tens of millions of people, including Tokyo residents, might need to leave their homes, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press. But fearing widespread panic, officials kept the report secret.

The recent emergence of the 15-page internal document may add to complaints in Japan that the government withheld too much information about the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chornobyl.

It also casts doubt about whether the government was sufficiently prepared to cope with what could have been an evacuation of unprecedented scale.

The report was submitted to then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his top advisers on March 25, two weeks after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, causing three reactors to melt down and generating hydrogen explosions that blew away protective structures.

Workers ultimately were able to bring the reactors under control, but at the time, it was unclear whether emergency measures would succeed. Kan commissioned the report, compiled by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, to examine what options the government had if those efforts failed.

Authorities evacuated 59,000 residents within 20 kilometres (12 miles) of the Fukushima plant, with thousands more were evacuated from other towns later. The report said there was a chance far larger evacuations could be needed.

The report looked at several ways the crisis could escalate – explosions inside the reactors, complete meltdowns, and the structural failure of cooling pools used for spent nuclear fuel.

It said that each contingency was possible at the time it was written, and could force all workers to flee the vicinity, meaning the situation at the plant would unfold on its own, unmitigated.

Using matter-of-fact language, diagrams and charts, the report said that if meltdowns spiral out of control, radiation levels could soar.

In that case, it said evacuation orders should be issued for residents within and possibly beyond a 170-kilometre (105 mile) radius of the plant and “voluntary” evacuations should be offered for everyone living within 250 kilometres (155 miles) and even beyond that range.

That’s an area that would have included Tokyo and its suburbs, with a population of 35 million people, and other major cities such as Sendai, with a million people, and Fukushima city with 290,000 people.

The report further warned that contaminated areas might not be safe for “several decades.”

“We cannot rule out further developments that may lead to an unpredictable situation at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where there has been an accident, and this report outlines a summary of that unpredictable situation,” says the document, written by Shunsuke Kondo, head of the commission, which oversees nuclear policy.

After Kan received the report, he and other Japanese officials publicly insisted that there was no need to prepare for wider-scale evacuations.

Rumours of the report emerged this month after an outside panel was created to investigate possible coverups. Kyodo News agency first reported on the contents of the document on Saturday.

The government continues to refuse to make the document public. The AP obtained it Wednesday through a government source, who insisted on anonymity because the document was still categorized as internal.

Goshi Hosono, the Cabinet minister in charge of the nuclear crisis, implicitly acknowledged the document’s existence earlier this month, but said the government had felt no need to make it public.

“It was a scenario based on hypothesis, and even in the event of such a development, we were told that residents would have enough time to evacuate,” Hosono said.

“We were concerned about the possibility of causing excessive and unnecessary worry if we went ahead and made it public,” he said. “That’s why we decided not to disclose it.”

A Japanese government nuclear policy official, Masato Nakamura, said Wednesday that he stood behind Hosono’s decisions on the document.

“It was all his decisions,” he said. “We do not disclose all administrative documents.”

Japanese authorities and regulators have been repeatedly criticized for how they have handled information amid the unfolding nuclear crisis. Officials initially denied that the reactors had melted down, and have been accused of playing down the health risks of exposure to radiation.

In another example, a radiation warning system known as SPEEDI had identified high-risk areas where thousands of people were continuing to live while the reactors were in critical condition. Officials did not use that data to order evacuations; they have since said it was not accurate enough.

The outside panel investigating the government response to the nuclear crisis has been critical, calling for more transparency in relaying information to the public.

“Risk communication during the disaster cannot be said to have been proper at all,” it said in its interim report last month.

You might also be interested in: Japan earthquake survivor shares his tale 

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On January 28, organizations and individuals around the world are recognizing Data Privacy Day, an annual event defined to promote awareness and understanding of privacy practices and issues.

Recent data breaches and online security issues have made this year’s Data Privacy Day even more important.

Aon Risk Solutions, the risk management arm of Aon Corporation, says organizations should use the day as an opportunity to assess network risk practices.

“New risks, illustrated by the Carrier IQ mobile device privacy controversy, Zappos and Amazon’s 24 million records breached, Sony’s 100 million records breached and recent hacktivist attacks, are emerging faster than most policies and IT departments can keep up,” said Kevin Kalinich, global practice leader of cyber insurance for Aon Risk Solutions, in a statement. “Organizations that think their network could never be a penetrable target need to think again.”

Companies must focus on data privacy risk mitigation practices and become familiar with their cyber risk insurance policy to ensure a financial backstop is in place when – not if – a data breach occurs.

“It is important to understand that data privacy compliance starts with your data. The organization needs to know where its information is located, transferred and how it is accessed,” added Adam Nelson, chief privacy counsel for Aon Corporation

According to Aon, there are five important steps companies must consider taking to safeguard data:

1. Understand your obligations under law and applicable standards – Keep educated and aware of local, state, federal and foreign regulations, as they are constantly evolving.
2. Assemble a data security team and assess your data - In addition to determining the type and amount of personal data maintained, it is important to identify how data is collected, stored, used and transmitted as well as understand potential threats to the company’s security (e.g. third-party vendors, such as cloud computing service providers).
3. Develop data protection, privacy policies and procedures - The data security team should review existing policies and make them consistent with industry best practices. Social networking sites and related blogs pose new threats that must be considered.
4. Control hardware and software - Laptops, PDAs and other mobile devices present additional challenges. A data breach prevention program must assess and control exposures related to hardware and software used by company personnel.
5. Review contracts - Update and negotiate services agreements to ensure privacy and security protections are embedded within the company’s relationships.

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You may hit the “like” button on this article, or retweet it to your Twitter followers. Then you may upload a photo or video to your favourite social media site and text your spouse. They’re all common activities, but do you ever wonder about how what you do online could affect your reputation?

According to new research from Microsoft, most Canadians don’t. In its survey of 5,000 respondents in Canada, U.S., Spain, Germany and Ireland, most people may want to be more mindful of how their digital actives impact their online reputations.

In Canada, 75 percent of adults and 55 percent of children aged 8-17 years old surveyed do not think about the long-term impact of their online activities on their personal reputation, and only 37 percent of adults and 41 per cent of children think about the long-term impact of their online activities on the reputations of others.

“Protecting what you share online is very important. Online information can affect your friendships, promotions and job offers. It shapes how people see you,” said John Weigelt, National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada. “Without protection, your personal data can also be used against you in online fraud or by unwanted marketers. Canadians need to protect themselves and help children get into the right habits as well.”

The results showed that children could use more help managing their online reputations from their parents. Only one-third (34%) of parents surveyed help their children manage their online reputations. Children 8-14 years old are more than twice as likely to receive parental help as children 15-17 years old (66% vs. 25%). Among children who posted information online at a social networking site, children 15-17 years old were more likely to experience a negative consequence to their online reputation compared to children 8-14 years old (62% vs. 50%).

The survey also showed that uploading photos in general is not viewed as a major contributor to online profiles. While only 6 percent of adults and 9 percent of children responded that it was a major contributor, photos are considered one of the biggest influences on online reputations.

To help Canadians put their best digital foot forward, Microsoft Canada offers the following tips to help cultivate and maintain a positive online reputation:

• Think before you share.
  • Think about what you are posting (particularly photos and videos), who you are sharing the information with, and how it will impact your reputation. Talk with friends and family about what you do and do not want shared about you and ask them to remove anything you don’t want disclosed.
  • 11 percent of Canadian adults have been negatively impacted by the online activities of friends or family. Of those, 13 percent believed it led to being fired from a job, 8 percent being refused health care, 6 percent believed it resulted in being turned down for a job they were applying for, and 11 percent being turned down for a mortgage.
• Stay vigilant and conduct your own “reputation report” from time to time.
  • Search all variations of your name in Bing and other popular search engines, and evaluate if the results reflect the reputation you’d like to share with current or future employers, colleagues, friends and family members.
  • Research found that 39 percent of Canadian adults rarely or never do this.
• Consider separating your professional and personal profiles.
  • When job hunting, applying to a school or looking for new insurance or a loan, remember that your overall online profile can be a determining factor for hiring managers and application reviewers. Be sure to use different email addresses, screen names, referring blogs and websites for each profile, and avoid cross-referencing personal sites.
  • 56 percent of Canadian adults think about taking steps to keep their work and personal profiles private; however, 15 percent of Canadian adults have shared information online that was intended to remain private. Most commonly shared are details about one’s personal life (61%) and personal photos (35%).
• Adjust your privacy settings.
  • In Internet Explorer 9 or other Web browsers, and on social networking sites, personal blogs and other places where you maintain personal data, use privacy settings to help you manage who can see your information, search for you on online networking sites, and how you can block unwanted access.
  • According to our research, 34 per cent of Canadian adults do not use privacy settings on social networking sites.
• Be a good digital citizen.
  • The web has a long memory. Always conduct yourself in a civil manner, showing respect for those with whom you engage.

Many Canadians don't think about the long-term reputation risks of their online activities. Do you? (Click to enlarge) (CNW Group/Microsoft Canada)

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Natural disasters, like the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, are risks. Economic crises, like that occurring in the Eurozone, are risks. Supply chain risks in an increasingly connected world are risks. But what about some of the “quieter” risks? Insurance broker Willis, through its expert bloggers on WillisWire, has identified “a new set of thorny problems that may be keeping risk managers up at night.” From fracking to space tourism, obesity to batteries, the bloggers, have assembled their thoughts about the 18 top emerging risks for 2012 in the feature “What New Risks Will Emerge in 2012?”

The WillisWire Emerging Risks Round-up includes:

• Energy: “Fracking”
• Environmental: “Fracking”
• Mining: “Contingent Business Interruption”
• Supply Chain Interruption: “Issues at Subtier Suppliers”
• Trade Credit: “Political-Economic Turmoil”
• Financial Institutions: “Bradley Manning 2.0”
• Terrorism: “Cyber Terror”
• Aerospace: “Space Tourism”
• Power & Utilities: “Sodium-Sulfur Batteries”
• Health Care: “Booming Physician Employment”
• Renewable Energy: “Uncertainty Caused by National Energy Policies”
• Captives: “Transfer Pricing”
• Political Risk: “Continued Unrest in Egypt & Libya”
• Analytics: “Over-Reliance on Models”
• D&O: “International Cooperation of Regulators”
• Engineering: “‘Hold Harmless’ Legal Contracts”
• Life Sciences: “’No Fault’ Compensation for Clinical Trial Patients”
• Employee Safety: “Obesity Epidemic”

Willis says some of the risks identified by the WillisWire bloggers might not yet be front-and centre on companies’ radars, like the “perfect storm of cross-border cooperation between regulators” brewing outside boardrooms globally. However, other exposures, like the risks associated with hydraulic fracking for natural gas, are starting to grab headlines with several lawsuits (but no big claims as of yet) making insurance hard to find.

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The Geneva Association, an international insurance think tank, says there are three key areas of interest for the global industry this year: financial stability; governmental management of natural catastrophes and demographics and old age society.

In a press briefing, Secretary General and Managing Director Patrick M. Liedtke made the following comments about each of these key areas.

On financial stability and insurance:

No other topic has worried nation states around the world more persistently in 2011 than the question of global financial stability. And with as yet so many unresolved issues, ranging from a reappraisal of the risk-free nature of sovereign debt to significant new regulation and the further strengthening of the global financial system, the topic will remain at the top of the list for 2012 for insurers.”

Liedtke added that financial regulation has had a “profound impact on the way capital markets and financial systems operates, as well as the velocity and parameters of their evolution.

“Only with a profound understanding of the technical issues can regulators effect sound and efficient reforms, especially for such idiosyncratic industries as insurance. Insurance is a highly complex business and is not readily comparable with any other, even if they share some common elements. Unfortunately, it is also not always well understood by those outside the industry. This creates the risk of a misunderstanding of its operations and raises the likelihood of potentially unintended consequences of a particular regulatory action.”

Liedtke said that over the last two years, the international insurance industry has work to clarify the nature of its contribution to financial stability and has proved how insurance activities are a stabilizing rather than a destabilizing element.

“The next months will see some of the most important decisions made on insurance regulation. The changes arranged during this period – for the first time ever orchestrated through the G-20 at the global level – will be very significant for the insurance industry. It is vital, therefore, that any decisions made fully respect the role of insurance and facilitate sound and sustainable risk management and risk transfer solutions upon which our modern economies depend so much.”

On the governmental management of natural catastrophes, Liedtke reiterated the great costs catastrophes had on the insurance industry in 2011, with estimated claims reaching about USD $380 billion.

“Few governments thoroughly revisited their national risk management –if they even have one. In 2012, governments must make progress in understanding the risks their country and its citizens are exposed to and how to manage them properly. Like companies, they should establish comprehensive risk management processes. The techniques and tools are readily available and while paradoxically many governments expect their industries, and especially the high risk industries, such as nuclear, chemical or transport, to install efficient enterprise risk management systems, they themselves often neglect to do so at the national level. “

The first step, says Liedtke, is governmental recognition of the vulnerabilities present – and the risks facing them.

“For example, the impact on vital infrastructure from natural catastrophes or the degree of reliance on new technologies such as the internet or “the cloud” by essential services represent risks that are not always well enough understood and often not well managed.”

The second step would include implementing risk management policies that help set incentives for people and institutions to behave in a risk adequate manner.

“Whilst governments have focused a lot of their attention on getting to grips with the financial crisis, they must also not be distracted from the very significant financial and human impacts that natural catastrophes and other risks have. Inadequate risk management on the national level can only too easily lead to social instability and chaos.”

Liedtke addresses demographics and old age security and recognizes that the world’s population is aging – and quickly.

“While financial uncertainty has increased, state-systems for old-age provision have been incapable of following the significant shift of demographic trends. Today in most countries these systems are not perceived as resilient enough so that individuals would look towards them for reassurance rather than with anxiety. For too far long, the average age of retirement and retirement expectations have remained largely static while societal expectations have considered any additional increase in life expectancy an increase in the period of retirement only. Current pension systems are still largely based on the pioneering welfare reforms of German Otto von Bismarck who in 1889 established a pension system that early on fixed the retirement age at 65 years. This age has only been reconsidered recently and changes are gradual and too painfully slow to provide much relieve for public pension systems. Extrapolating Bismarck’s retirement age relative to the average gain in life expectancy of Western European populations, the retirement age today should be somewhere north of 90 years. While nobody today is proposing such radical reform, changing one of the fundamental static aspects of the various systems used in different countries seems more than overdue.”

Read the Geneva Association’s full release online (PDF).

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What’s more dangerous, sunburns or frostbite?

Thanks to Fred Kilbourne and insure.com

In a recent year in England, 24 people were hospitalized for frostbite (22 were males).  Perhaps half of these involved tissue necrosis (death of part of you), but the study didn’t report the number of associated amputations (fingers, toes, etc.).  Sunburn is far more prevalent than frostbite (even in gloomy England).

In the U.S., about one-third of Americans reporting that they were burned by the sun within the past year.  Sunburn hospitalizations are also rare – but sunburn is far more dangerous than frostbite because of one word – melanoma.  This sometimes fatal form of skin cancer has been linked to severe sunburns, even those that occurred decades before the cancer appeared.

Other titles in this series:

What’s more dangerous, showers or baths?

What’s more dangerous, motorcycles or horses?

What’s more dangerous, bears of lightning?

What’s more dangerous, a spouse or a serial killer?

What’s more dangerous, your parent or your child?

What’s more dangerous, dog bites or snake bites?

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RIMS (the Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc.) announced that Deborah M. Luthi, ARM will lead the Society as president for the 2012 term, effective January 1.

Ms. Luthi is the Enterprise Risk Manager for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.  She has been a member of RIMS for almost 32 years and on the board for 11 years.  Previously, Ms. Luthi served as Vice President and board liaison to the Society’s Finance Committee and Spencer Educational Foundation Committee. She is a member of RIMS Golden Gate Chapter; as well as RIMS Sacramento Valley Chapter, which she helped to co-found in 1991.

“Last year, risk managers around the world were put to the test and were met head-on with new challenges that included a complete global financial meltdown and unexpected natural disasters,” said Ms. Luthi. “As we move forward into 2012, it’s important that RIMS helps redefine the ‘risk manager’ and their responsibilities in order to continue to provide members with the best resources and opportunities essential for their organization’s success.”

Officers on RIMS 2012 Board of Directors:

• President: Deborah M. Luthi, ARM, Director, Risk Management Services, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission;
• Vice President: John R. Phelps, ARM, CPCU, Director, Business Risk Solutions, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Inc.;
• Treasurer: Carolyn M. Snow, CPCU, Director, Risk Management, Humana Inc.;
• Corporate Secretary: Nowell R. Seaman, CIP, CRM, Manager, Risk Management & Insurance Services, University of Saskatchewan.

Newly-Elected Board Members:

• Al Gorski, Chief Risk Officer, Orange County Transportation Authority;
• Leslie Lamb, Global Risk Manager, Cisco Systems, Inc.

Re-Elected Board Members:

• Robert Cartwright Jr., CRM, Loss Prevention Manager, Bridgestone Retail Operations, LLC;
• Scott B. Clark, AAI, Risk & Benefits Officer, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (Ex-Officio);
• Kim Hunton, MPA, FCIP, RF, Corporate Risk Manager, City of Ottawa;
• Dan H. Kugler, ARM, CEBS, CPCU, ACI, Assistant Treasurer, Risk Management, Snap-On Inc.;
• William Montanez, ARM, Director, Risk Management, Ace Hardware Corporation;
• Julie C. Pemberton, ARM, Director, Enterprise Risk and Insurance Management, Coinstar;
• Michael D. Phillipus, ARM, Director, Insurance and Risk Management, ATP Oil & Gas Corporation;
• Richard J. Roberts, Jr., ALCM, ARM, CPCU, RF, MBA, Corporate Risk Manager, Ensign-Bickford Industries, Inc.;
• Frederick J. Savage, FCII, ARM, Director, Risk Management (San Ramon), Chevron Corporation;
• Lori Seidenberg, ARM, Vice-President, Enterprise Risk Management, Centerline Capital Group.

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A new report from Ernst & Young revealed that 83% of Canadian organizations are concerned with the growing tech risks their company faces due to the increasing need of social media and mobile technology capabilities. Additionally, 63% of these businesses noted that they do not have an adequate budget to allocate to the security features of their IT infrastructure.

Gaétan Houle, Associate Partner and National Leader for IT Security Advisory services at Ernst & Young, explains that, “the introduction of smartphones and tablets in the working environment has extended the virtual boundaries of the enterprise, blurring the lines between home and the office. Constant access to email and sensitive corporate data from anywhere, anytime may improve productivity, but also increases security risks. The concept of defence perimeter must be replaced by defence-in-depth”.

Ernst & Young’s 2011 Global Information Security Survey exposed that while 62% of Canadians who responded plan to increase their budgets for information security in the next 12 month period, only 37% intend to spend more money on security monitoring. Houle remarked that, “this is a bit concerning,” and “the introduction of personal smartphones and tablets, combined with the increasing demand for access to social media has opened up several new attack vectors for advanced persistent threats (APTs), which are a well-resourced, highly capable and relentless class of hackers.”

Executives of respondent companies do have social media on their radar, however. Many respondents (72%) felt that the top threat to their organization was external malicious attacks, and nearly 40% reported that social media related risks were quite challenging.

Businesses appear to be handling the potential risks posed by social media by implementing strict policies.  Fifty-three percent of respondents attested to restricting access to websites rather than accepting the inevitable change and implementing companywide measures to embrace social media. “In fact”, says Houle, “the lack of an integrated information security policy for both access to and use of social media may prevent companies from keeping pace with competitors and may be creating a sense of mistrust with employees.” Organizations should accept the benefits that social media has to offer and, from a preventative methods perspective, develop a policy that clearly addresses external social media and bring awareness to employees the potential damages to a company’s brand.  Instead of restricting access to these websites, companies are encouraged to simply monitor employee’s use of these sites to ensure it is work-related.

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Internet content security firm Trend Micro is predicting that online shopping risks this year may be even greater due to the popular boom in mobile shopping, yet Canadians continue to embrace online shopping in record numbers. In 2010, Canadians spent more than $15.3 billion worth of goods online in nearly 114 million transactions.

“Online shopping need not come at the added cost of unwillingly buying into cyber scams. Much like the real world, if an online deal looks too good to be true, it probably is,” says Trend Micro Canada’s Ian Gordon, Director of Marketing.

Trend Micro has identified the top five cyber threats for this holiday season:

Lookalike sites. Some enterprising Internet “entrepreneurs” have already figured out the most common misspellings of popular destination sites. So if the e-commerce site you go to looks just a teeny bit odd, double-check the URL and make sure you are where you intended to go.

Scam links on social media. Links to malware and scam sites offering special holiday offers and magical mistletoe can spread as quickly on Facebook and Twitter as a cold can spread through a kindergarten class. It may be best to avoid all holiday-related links on Facebook and potentially miss out on that thrilling video of the dog barking “Jingle Bells” than to click on a link that wipes out your computer.

Fake holiday gifts. Emails offering gift items at prices that are too good to be true—you should be very wary. Unscrupulous con artists can even set up web pages using a fake company name selling fake holiday gifts. Do your research—if you don’t recognize the name of the company, don’t order anything!

Fraudulent sellers on auction sites. When you can’t find the season’s most popular new toy in an actual store, you might decide to see if anybody’s reselling the toy online. If you do, avoid sellers with very few ratings or ones without established histories on the site. Don’t take a chance on an unproven merchant.

Emails from “retailers” about your credit card information. If you get an email asking you to confirm or re-enter a credit card number that the retailer already has, chances are it’s phony. If you’re worried that a retailer really has failed to process your order, go to the site and look up your account or contact their customer service center—don’t click on a link in email that could redirect to a dummy site.

Other titles of interest:

Famous former computer hacker shares his expertise on cyber security

Is cyber liability insurance necessary?

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As the holiday shopping frenzy descends upon us, a new season of gift giving is in full swing. According to the stats, traditional holiday sales in North America are expected to increase 2.8 percent this year, with nearly half of shoppers buying online. This means that as online and in-store shoppers begin checking off their lists, FedEx estimates that more than 260 million shipments will pass through its global network between the end of November and Christmas – a 12 percent jump from last year.

A significant portion of the increase will likely be driven by online retailers and cataloguers who ship items such as books, apparel, personal consumer electronics and luxury goods.

The shipping giant anticipated their busiest day would be December 12th, and they were right. On that Monday, more than 17 million shipments were made around the world and goes down as the busiest day in the company’s history, beating last year’s record by 10 percent.

And though it pales in comparison to the estimated two billion presents delivered overnight by Santa and his trusty reindeer, it’s a remarkable feat of logistical planning.

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Jamie Miller, Swiss Re’s Director of North American Property, explains the concept of parametric insurance.

Jamie Miller: One of the innovative areas that we work in is trying to develop custom solutions. And one of those areas relates to cat risk for clients that have large exposures. So what we try and do is come up with an alternative strategy based on our exposure and access into the capital markets, where we (have been) a leader in cat bonds for years now.

We’ve taken our expertise in the cat bond area and turned it into the individual risk side of the house. So now we go to an individual corporate or public entity, which is an area we are trying to grow, and we can offer a solution that is not part of a traditional program.

So that effectively is a double trigger where you’d have an independent measure of what it might be. It might be a buoy or a wind buoy or whatever, and the next piece of it would be some kind of physical loss to make insurance from the client.

The beauty of it is the client can do it outside of the traditional program. So we could be participating on the traditional program and then we could be moving over doing this non-traditional piece; and on the non-traditional piece  the client gets paid out in 45 days if the triggers hit. So there’s no claims adjustment process and the beauty for them is they now get the chance to pre-fund increased costs; they get to evaluate issues that aren’t traditionally covered under an  insurance product.

For us we get to play in both spaces so it’s exciting because we really have unique expertise into the capital market. So we take most of that risk, but if we choose to do very large programs, then we can lay that risk into the capital market.

One of the interesting things about the parametric component is that it also addressed the kind of accumulative risk that people have on CAT exposures with any of the competitors or ourselves. Since everyone has to closely monitor that going forward, we have a whole different counter-party risk because it’s capital market providers and investors, it’s not traditional re-insurers or insurance.

It’s very interesting and what it does is open up a whole other world for the client.

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In the last 12 months, 85 percent of companies surveyed by Zurich Financial Services Group say they’ve experienced at least one supply chain disruption. The main cause of the disruptions was adverse weather, with 51 percent of respondents citing it. Unplanned IT and telecommunications outages was the second most likely disruption affecting 41 percent of respondents.

Further findings include:

• The earthquakes and tsunami experienced in Japan and New Zealand this year affected 20% of responding organizations, which were headquartered in 18 different countries.
• Cyber attack rises to become a top three source of disruption in the financial services sector.
• Supply chain incidents led to a loss of productivity for almost half of businesses along with increased cost of working (38%) and loss of revenue (32%).
• Longer term consequences of disruption in the supply chain included shareholder concern (19%), damage to reputation (17%), and expected increases in regulatory scrutiny (11%).
• For 17% of respondents the financial costs of the largest single incident totaled a million or more Euros. This figure almost doubles to 32% where less resilient supply chains are evident in the research.
• The survey result that 40% of disruptions are below tier one also reinforces the importance of driving supply chain understanding to below the supplier tiers with whom the customer interacts directly.
• Among the threats rising in prominence is an HR one, with loss of talent or skills rising from 14th place in 2010 to 6th place in 2011. This represents a warning that lay-offs among supply chain partners is leading to increased disruption.
• 74% of respondents either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the proposition that outsourcing and just-in-time/lean strategies were making their organizations more vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

Nick Wildgoose, Global Supply Chain Product Manager at Zurich Global Corporate, commented: “At Zurich, we are finding that an increasing number of our customers are realizing that they can reduce costs of disruption and gain competitive advantage by understanding their critical supply chains risks better.”

Lyndon Bird, Technical Director at the BCI, commented: “While just-in-time efficiencies and outsourcing strategies are here to stay in some form, this survey shows it is more critical than ever to strike a sensible balance between the need to drive down costs and the need for these cost savings not to be wiped out through disruption or unacceptable risk exposure, especially in the context of the longer term reputational damage.”

The survey report, supported also by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply and DHL Supply Chain, concludes that effectively managing supply chain continuity is critical not just because of the immediate costs of disruption, but also the longer term consequences to stakeholder confidence and reputation that may arise following a supply chain failure.

You might also be interested in: Supply chain management 

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A blue screen of death. A sudden hard drive failure. A laptop doused in water. Many computer users have experienced crashes and are familiar with that sinking and helpless feeling as they try to recover files. A recent survey from Wakefield Research and Carbonite found that computer crashes resulting in a loss of entire libraries of digital files is an experience shared by over half (51 percent) of Americans, yet still 39 percent of respondents say they have never backed up their computers or haven’t done so in more than a year.

The general lack of preparedness is surprising in light of the fact that 40 percent of respondents feel like they would never be able to recover, recreate or repurchase all of their documents and files if their personal computer crashed, the survey found.  It’s even more surprising considering the insights that the study uncovered regarding the significant value many Americans assign to their digital content, including:

• “It’s More Valuable Than Vacation Time”:  50% would rather lose all of their vacation time for an entire year than lose all of the files on their computer.
• “It’s Even More Precious Than My Wedding Ring”:  38% of married respondents feel that it would be worse to lose everything on their computer than to lose their wedding ring.
• “I’d Pay Dearly to Get My Data Back“: 62% said they would pay to get back their lost data if their computer crashed; 21% said they would pay $500 and 27% said they would pay as much as they needed to get their documents and files back.
• “I’d Sacrifice Something I Love to Save My Data”: People would go to extremes to immediately recover all of their data if it were lost:

• 34% would give up beer and wine for a year;
• 31% would give up coffee for a year;
• 23% would give up their cell phone for a month; and
• 18% would give up their free time to mow their neighbor’s lawn for a year.

The study also revealed that computer users are surprisingly trusting of their computer hard drives, particularly taking into account that over half have lost all of their personal files in a computer crash at some point. According to study, 82% of Americans keep electronic files only and the majority of these files are nowhere else but on their computer hard drive. The most popular files people store digitally are photos (55%), music (46%), resumes (42%), addresses (28%), phone numbers (27%), and financial documents (22%). Notably, the average American surveyed has more than $400 of digital music and movies on their computers and that, for one in four, the music and movies are worth more than the computer itself.

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The international risk management community is eager to understand how to buy insurance seamlessly, cost-effectively and in a compliant manner for multinational enterprises with risks in Canada, says the ACE Group. Navigating through tax systems, a two-tiered regulatory scheme and different insurance regulations from province to province are key for multinational enterprises operating in Canada.

The ACE Group has released a new report – “Structuring Multinational Insurance Programs: Insights into Cross-Border Insurance Regulation in Canada” – co-authored by Suresh Krishnan, General Counsel for ACE’s Multinational Client Group, and Fernand Vartanian, General Counsel for ACE Canada. The report explores the various regulatory and execution challenges faced by multinational enterprises with Canadian exposures.

“Canada and its provinces and territories have among the world’s most sophisticated regulatory regimes overseeing the purchase and implementation of insurance programs,” said Mr. Krishnan. “With a clear understanding of Canadian federal and provincial laws, risk managers, brokers and insurers may more effectively navigate the multifaceted landscape of cross-border insurance regulations in Canada.”

Examining these challenges from the perspective of companies with operations in Canada but based elsewhere, the report distinguishes between regulation on the broker, the insured and the insurer when it comes to the placement and taxation of non-admitted insurance; highlights the importance of understanding that each of Canada’s provinces and territories regulate insurance independently of each other; explains the excise tax imposed by Canada’s federal government; and outlines how the application of the principles of “insurable interest” may provide measurable compliance.

The report concludes with a checklist of key points that insurers, brokers and risk managers should consider when designing and implementing a multinational insurance program insuring Canadian risks.

The full report can be read online. (PDF)

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