UK Plc only just managed to keep going during the snow
storm earlier this year. Many organisations are using a
home-working strategy to cope with the swine 'flu
epidemic.
But the concern is that the reality of the swine 'flu epidemic
will be worse than the snow storm. There will not be enough
bandwidth to cope, due to contention ratios and exchange
overload.
Executives using their home router to access the office will
very likely be subject to contention issues. If everyone else is
working from home, broadband access may be unusable. School
children downloading videos and games at home will not help and
local exchanges will be vulnerable to bandwidth constraints when
thousands of people are uploading and downloading large files from
e-mail, voice and video meetings.
Many organisations are planning for a percentage of their
workforce not being able to come to the office, due to the illness.
However their assumptions may be unrealistic. Potentially less than
half your work force may appear due to:
- People who are genuinely ill
- People who think they are "coming down with something"
- People who need to look after children (due to school
closure)
- People who need to look after sick relatives
- People who are scared to go to work in case they catch swine
flu from someone else using public transport
- People who are pregnant or have old people at home and don't
wish to expose them to the disease
- People who normally use public transport may find restricted
access with fewer bus and train services due to transport workers
taking time off work for the reasons above
- People who drive may not have sufficient petrol due to station
closures due to epidemic-related causes and sufficient petrol in
the petrol station itself.
This article draws on interviews with Bob Mann, CISO for DHL and
Dr Nigel Brown, Lead for Resilient Telecommunications Strategy for
the Cabinet Office with
SecurityVibes,
an online networking service for security professionals.
Dr Nigel Brown's podcast interview
is available here.
Potential Breaches Caused by Pandemics
can be read here.
Ben Chai is chief editor of SecurityVibes.