Thursday | 8 January, 2009
CIO
What You Can Do If Your Security Vendor Fails
You can almost hear creaky saloon doors rattling in the wind and tumbleweed staggering through the dust.
Scott Berinato 12 November, 2001 10:30:00

On May 9, exactly two weeks after Pilot disbanded, it was liquidated. There was a Hail Mary as several managed security vendors tried to take over the business, but that collapsed. Emergency operations and support were halted. AT&T finally cut the circuits, and Brown at VisionTek received a page. VisionTek was still waiting for the local carrier to supply a data line, so Brown boxed up his equipment and drove it to its temporary home in a downtown Chicago facility.

On the same day, Pilot's homepage finally changed its cheerful, "Yes, we're open" message. "Pilot Networks has filed for bankruptcy" was all it said. There were some snippy redesigns of the Pilot website, obviously tacked up by bitter ex-employees. The title bar of Pilot.net read: "Pilot Network Services is now Imaginary Network Services Inc."

Someone left behind a sarcastic note, which only hinted at what had gone on. Anyone who happened by and clicked on "What's new" would see the note: "Here is the latest about Pilot: We're done! Pilot is no more. This company is an ex-secure ISP. If it weren't for being nailed to the perch, it would fall over. Alameda, CA, May 9, 2001."

You can almost hear creaky saloon doors rattling in the wind and tumbleweed staggering through the dust.

Share your tips on how to avoid security disasters with Senior Writer Scott Berinato at sberinato@cio.com.

5 KEYS to a Security Contingency Plan

1. INVEST in a "dark" data line that's ready to turn on in an emergency.

2. LEGALIZE contingency efforts by writing them in to service level agreements.

3. MAINTAIN a list of the top three to five alternative providers to contact for new services.

4. REPLACE only services that are necessary at first, building up security over time.

5. REASSESS contingency plans every quarter.

5 STEPS TO Take When a Managed Security Disaster Strikes 1. BRIEF executives at least once a day.

2. ASSIGN an IT staff member to monitor the situation.

3. DOCUMENT everything for possible legal action.

4. PREPARE a static webpage as a placeholder for sudden outages.

5. BEGIN negotiations with alternative providers.

For more information, visit our Security and Privacy Research Center at www.cio.com/security and read "Security Choices You Need to Make" at www.cio.com/printlinks.

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