… Jet lag, Standards and novel practice

An early start today with a 5:00 AM arrival in the UK. In the spirit of my conference presentation I am experimenting with a novel practice to counter jet lag. You can read my BCEye blog post about adopting different mind sets and thinking differently.

My novel practice involved registering to attend a British Standards Institute launch event for ISO 27001. Conventional thinking would assume that an Infomation Security standards seminar is more likely to encourage sleep than keep it at bay.

 

So after a shower, change and breakfast at the BA arrivals lounge I loaded up my hire car and battled the M1 up to the BSI’s offices in Milton Keynes. This was a free event so I guess expecting good coffee was optimistic so no caffeine to help stay awake!

 

The day featured five speakers, and I have to admit the experiment was on shaky ground during the first session which provided a history of ISO27001 and some high level changes in this version. Fortunately all improved after that.

 

Some interesting insights into the ISO Annex SL that will also apply to the risk and BCM standards, and twists to the way I had seen the meanings of “scope” and “top management” applied. Talking direct to people who are standards editors and chairs of these committees often provides more enlightenment and less religious zeal than you find in other quarters.

My primary interest in attending was to complement the subject I am speaking on at the BCM World Conference – using Cyber threat as an exercise for Executive engagement. One of the sessions included  some interesting findings by PwC from a survey on Cyber attacks and security breaches. The survey was UK specific but I think many of the findings could probably be relevant – or at least a wake up call – internationally. The survey has been run annual for several years and the results are available free.

The final session of the BSI seminar was a fascinating look at perhaps the greatest security vulnerability – our people. This was a lively look at Social Engineering and how the bad guys can use this to compromise security, both physical and virtual. All this plus some useful conversation over lunch and I was energised for the drive back to Heathrow and the train into town.

 

The acid test for my novel antidote to jet-lag is yet to come as I will shortly I head out to attend the BCI AGM – at least there is the promise of drinks afterwards!

Conference gets underway tomorrow – will post and Tweet about the sessions I attend.