Business continuity and useful resources about the N1H1 Swine Flu.

First of all, there is nothing (today) to worry about. But it doesn't hurt to be prepared and to keep an eye on the situation. Potentially, it can become a risk. At this point, the highest risk is scammers/blackhats using this event to send out spam to people to sell them medication (McAfee Avertlabs).

But things might get a bit worse because a lot of domains were registered last weekend containing the words swine flu. Although F-Secure didn't find any malware, this might change and these sites can be used in a Blackhat SEO campain. Visit their site for a list of domains.

Additional resource: Swine Flu Phishing Attacks and Email Scams (US CERT)

Should this fly really become a pandemic, it can be an operational risk of course. Having your NOC or other critical personnel sick at home, can bring some issues. So let's have a look at some interesting resources to keep an eye on this and prepare yourself.

First is this excellent SANS page, courtesy of Stephen Northcut: World Wide Pandemic Watch Version 1.8

Abstract:

The purpose of this document is to prepare IT and IT Security people to brief management. We put this news aggregation together and have made it as accurate as possible. I have tried to be careful with the credits to the internet sources aggregated here. No rights are claimed, feel free to repost, copy, link to, harvest information from this document. Just try to be as accurate as you can and be careful about believing everything you read, the two best information sources are WHO and CDC. If you have additional information I would love to hear from you, I am http://twitter.com/stephennorthcut on twitter and stephen@sans.edu for email.

Next, this Google map gives a geographical view of outbreaks and related news.

I really liked this Business Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist (PDF - 284.24 KB)

For web 2.0 peeps; follow these twitter accounts : @veratect and @cdcemergency

And last but not least, specifically for Belgium: the site to use is www.influenza.be. Start with the 2 FAQS: Mexicaanse griep and Grieppandemie. Check their website for the latest press releases.

27/04/2009	Influenza	Mogelijk geval van H1N1 in België: resultaten negatief
26/04/2009	FAVV	Het “varkensgriepvirus” is geen “varkensvirus” meer
25/04/2009	Influenza	Varkensgriep in Mexico en de Verenigde Staten : stand van zaken

So stay calm and be alert is the message here. The influenza agency can be contacted on the following number during office hours for questions or reports: 0800/ 99 7777

(Photo under creative commons from toastforbrekkie's photostream)