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Reposted from securityinfowatch.com
One of the most critical elements in any disaster planning and preparedness program is the use of an effective mass notification system to alert all staff, students, visitors, patients and vendors that there is an immediate emergency unfolding and instructing them how to safely respond.
Whether it is a weather-related disaster, for example, a college may cancel classes during an ice storm; a water main break or whether it is an active shooter incident located in a specific area of the campus, mass notification is a critical element of keeping people safe during any type of emergency.
Danger on Campus
For example, on October 1, 2015, an active-shooter breached a lecture hall at Umpqua Community College in Oregon and began shooting students. It was a shocking event because 10 students were killed (including the shooter) and many more were wounded. The shooter asked students whether they were Christians, and if they were, he shot them in the head, and if they said no, he shot them in the leg.
The most distressing element of the Umpqua Community College incident was that the mass notification system didn’t work. The system had been purchased and implemented but when the disaster happened, the system did not work. It had been set up to send out emails and text messages to all students, staff and contractors, and the system even had a scrolling banner across the screen of all campus computers. But still, the system failed.
As news of the shootings and the sounds of the gunshots were heard on the campus, students were posting questions and warnings on twitter. They were also calling their parents, who were unable to find out information on the safety of their children. The shooting was a pivotal event in the adoption of mass notification systems.
Every organization should have a mass notification system in place. Whether the organization is a hospital, a college or university, a business, a retail store, a mall, or a medical clinic, this piece should be a critical element of your organization’s emergency plan.
If your company or organization is planning to implement a mass notification system, here are some of the things to consider when selecting the system that will work best for your application
Elements to Consider When Implementing a Mass Notification System
No matter the specific mass notification system selected, you’ll need to decide whether staff will be required to use the system on their personal cell phones and home computers, or whether they have a choice of how they prefer to be contacted in case of an emergency. And as advanced capabilities are added to the organization’s mass notification system, all the policies and procedures for emergency preparedness, safety and security will need to be updated.
While use and capabilities of mass notification systems have expanded over the past decade when they were primarily used only for weather emergencies, such as tornadoes, hurricane warnings and flood warnings, today’s systems are far more proactive for safety and security purposes such as active shooter, workplace violence and terrorist incidents.
So as the use of mass notification software increases beyond its presumptive boundaries, what other uses are organizations finding for their systems? Some of the most common are:
In these cases, the mass notification system becomes not just a critical element of the emergency planning process but acts as a direct communication tool that can be used in a variety of circumstances.
Technology that is Helping the Community At the beginning of this article, I referenced the Umpqua Community College shooting, where the mass notification system failed when needed, and how that may have contributed to the high number of deaths at the college.
However, there are numerous positive instances of how mass notification systems have saved lives, property and worked as a critical community resource.
In instances of inclement weather circumstances can change with each passing minute, the mass notification system can serve a vital role in keeping people safe by announcing hurricane or tornado emergencies in advance; sending out notifications of flooding in communities, or even intersections; notifying specific areas of cities and unincorporated areas of urgent evacuations, as in flooding during Hurricane Katrina, and also in the recent spate of wildfires in the western United States. Besides notifying residents of a required evacuation, they can also provide residents information concerning evacuation options, where available shelters are open in local areas, and even places where pets are welcomed.
Compliance Issues
On November 15, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) posted a new Final Rule for Emergency Preparedness in the Federal Register. The Rule covers 17 types of healthcare organizations, from hospitals to ambulatory surgery centers to medical clinics and hospices. This new broad-reaching rule has to be complied with by November 15, 2017 and includes a requirement for a mass communication system.
The CMS Final Rule on Emergency Preparedness states that:, “A hospital [must] have a process for ensuring cooperation and collaboration with local, tribal, regional, state, or federal emergency preparedness officials’ efforts to ensure an integrated response during a disaster or emergency situation.”
“In addition, “we would expect the facility to include in its emergency plan a method for contacting off-duty staff during an emergency and procedures to address other contingencies in the event staff are not able to report to duty which may include but are not limited to staff from other facilities and state or federally-designated health professionals.”
Accrediting organizations like the Joint Commission for healthcare organizations also includes similar requirements for communication systems.
Difficult times call for new strategies in protecting staff and facilities. Having a mass notification system is a critical component in ensuring organizational staff is safe during a wide variety of emergencies. Whether it is a flooding event, an approaching tornado, a domestic violence incident, severe heat, an active shooter, a local terrorist, or a variety of other types of events, having a mass notification system is one of the very best controls you can implement that will help your organization function better in an emergency situation.
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Reposted from smithsonianmag.com
The Galveston Arts Center sustained heavy losses when Hurricane Ike hit Texas in 2008. This time around, staff members were ready.
On a Wednesday afternoon, staff members at the Galveston Arts Center were in the final stages of installing an expansive exhibition that was scheduled to open on August 26. Works by three contemporary artists—Bradley Kerl, Angel Oloshove and Christopher Cascio—had been carefully displayed in three different galleries. Then the news broke: Hurricane Harvey was going to hit, and it was going to hit hard.
Fearing for the safety of the art, staff began dismantling the exhibition. They carried the works to an upper level of the building, and stored them in two different rooms: a small, cement vault and a windowless back gallery. The opening of the exhibition was pushed back to September 9. The main galleries stood empty.
Now that Texas is in the midst of the storm, it appears that Galveston has been spared the worst of Harvey’s wrath; Houston, by contrast, has been devastated by heavy rains and flooding. But last week, not knowing where the hurricane would hit, the Arts Center team decided not to leave anything up to chance.
“We are taking every precaution,” Dennis Nance, curator at the Galveston Arts Center, tells Smithsonian.com. “There's no messing around with this stuff."
Nance has good reason to be wary. Back in 2008, when Hurricane Ike pummeled Texas, the Galveston Arts Center sustained steep losses. According to Harvey Rice of the Houston Chronicle, art valued at more than $100,000 was ruined, and the storm caused upward of $1 million in damage to the historic, 19th-century bank building that houses the Arts Center.
Nance was not working for the Galveston Arts Center at the time, but he noted that the team was unable to properly prepare for the storm.
“They had a huge retrospective exhibition with large works,” he explains. “I believe the curator wasn't able to get there in time to help with the preparations, and couldn't even have done it on his own. It was just the worst possible scenario.”
It took the board members seven years to raise enough funds to restore the building and return the Galveston Arts Center to its historic home. Nance says that memories of Hurricane Ike, and the damage it caused, are still “traumatic.” So this time around, the team was prepared.
Planning for the possibility of a fierce storm began long before Harvey started fomenting in the Caribbean. Knowing that hurricane season was approaching, Nance deliberately scheduled exhibitions that would be easy to transport and store if the worst were to happen. The works that will now go on display in September include a series of paintings and small, ceramic totems.
“I was like, ‘We're going to do a couple of painting shows, not major installations in hurricane season,’” Nance says.
When news of Harvey’s impending arrival broke, Nance swung into action. He made sure that the upstairs vault was clear, and then began sorting through essential paperwork, like insurance policies and loan agreements. Next, he contacted artists whose work was on display at the Arts Center.
“The three artists with work on view all live in Houston and we all felt we could safely secure their work in our building, where it would also be covered by our fine art insurance policy,” Nance explains. “I made sure all loan agreements were in order and thoroughly documented the work on view. If we would have brought the work back to their studios [in] Houston, we would have not been able to offer the same assurances in the event of flooding in their studios. It's definitely just as much about taking care of the people we work with as much as the object they create.”
Once the art was packed away in a secure location, staff moved all gift shop merchandise that was touching the floor to an elevated space, where it would be safe from potential flooding. During the renovations after Hurricane Ike, the basement of the Arts Center was fitted with storm windows. But on the recommendation of Alex Irvine, former executive director of the Galveston Arts Center, staff members lined the rest of the building’s windows with towels.
Then, they went home to wait out the storm, hoping that the Arts Center would emerge unscathed. Thus far, it seems to be faring well.
“With the renovation of the building, we have a security system with cameras, and I can just turn my phone on and look into the gallery,” Nance says. “So Friday night when that first rain was coming in, I was just looking, and you could see the front door, and there was a little light on the table so I could tell, ‘OK, power's still working. There's no water in the building.’”
“We feel really lucky,” he adds, “and our hearts totally go our to the organizations and people who are experiencing the worst part of [Harvey].”
As heavy rains continue to fall on Houston, Nance and other members of the local arts community have been busy compiling resources for artists whose work has been damaged by flooding. Fresh Arts, a Houston-based non-profit that supports local artists, has put together a community-sourced Google Doc listing organizations that provide emergency support, in the form of financial grants, loans and short-term residencies.
“I think everyone just really wants to help right now,” Nance says. “It's been really amazing just to see what people are doing to support one another.”
Reposted from Chicago Tribune
A shooting inside a public library that killed two people and wounded four has deeply shaken an eastern New Mexico community.
The gunman surrendered after the shooting Monday and was taken into custody without incident after police entered the Clovis-Carver Public Library, authorities and elected officials with the city of Clovis said during a news conference. Warrants for his arrest were being prepared, but it's wasn't immediately clear what charges he would face.
Clovis Mayor David Lansford said things could have been much worse had it not been for the quick response, training and courage of police. He called the shooting tragic and senseless.
"This is a big blow to our community," he said. "Our community is a community that places a high value on life and the sanctity of life. And each life that lives in this community is precious. So we're all hurting right now as a result of what took place this afternoon."
Clovis, a city of about 40,000, is about 200 miles east of Albuquerque, near the Texas state line. The area is home to Cannon Air Force Base. The nearby community of Portales is home to Eastern New Mexico University.
The injured included two men and two women, authorities said. Some were taken to a hospital across the state line in Lubbock, Texas. The extent of their injuries was not immediately known.
One woman was seen being helped into an ambulance while a call for air ambulances could be heard over police radio traffic.
The names of the victims and the gunman were not released.
A woman who was in the Clovis-Carver Public Library when a man killed two people and wounded four others said the man told her to run, the Eastern New Mexico News reported Monday night.
Lisa Baird told the newspaper that she was about 20 feet from the man as he opened fire inside the library.
"Run!," he yelled at her. "Why aren't you running? I'm shooting at you! Run!"
Baird talked to the newspaper through Facebook Messenger. She said she was talking with a library patron when she says she heard a "very loud bang."
"My initial thought was why would someone throw a cherry bomb or M80 firecracker into the library? Then I saw a young man aim his hand, which had a handgun in it, to the ground/carpet about 6 feet in front of him and he fired like four or five shots into the carpet," she said.
She dove under a nearby desk "and tried to squish up as small as possible," Baird said.
From there, Baird said she could hear the man moving around the library and firing multiple shots.
"Then I heard his pants 'shooshing' as he approached the end of the reference desk. I heard a sound like a phone or something being put on the reference counter at the end of the desk, about 4 feet from my head," she said.
Then police entered the library and began shouting for the man with the gun to "lay on the ground" repeatedly, Baird said.
Police Chief Doug Ford says the suspect did not resist after police arrived.
Police said they were still working to process the crime scene and piece together what happened. Ford could not immediately say what kind of gun was used in the attack.
Top elected officials from across New Mexico issued their condolences for the victims and their support for the community. Gov. Susana Martinez called it a "horrific attack."
"In the coming hours and days we will learn more information about this despicable act, but for now I ask all New Mexicans to pray for the victims and their families, and for the entire Clovis community," said Martinez, a former prosecutor.
Attorney General Hector Balderas said his office has reached out to the local district attorney to offer its help.
Sojung Her, a 26-year-old cashier at the Shogun Japanese Steakhouse within view of the library lawn, said the shooting left behind a sense of fear and vulnerability.
"It's kind of a freak thing," she said. "What if he just walked into our restaurant and started shooting?"
Police cars and tactical officers crowded the streets outside as she arrived to work at the restaurant late Monday afternoon.
"This kind of thing never happens here," she said.
Vanessa Aguirre told The Eastern New Mexico News that she was in the library with her son when a man came in and started to shoot into the air.
"It all happened so fast," she said. "We took off fast."
Reposted from The Economist
The jihadists are not the only ones to blame.
The Middle East is used to ruins. A millennium ago the “mad caliph” of Cairo, Hakim, ordered the leveling of all churches, including the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Jesus’s burial site. The Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258, causing the Tigris to flow black from the ink of discarded books. Tamerlane spared nothing but hospitals and mosques as he went on what a contemporary chronicler called a “pilgrimage of destruction” across the region’s great cities. “She is empty, and void, and waste,” wailed Nahum, the biblical prophet, foreseeing the ruin of Nineveh at the hands of the Babylonians.
Still, the desolation of the past three years is probably the worst on record. According to the UN, half of the old city of Mosul, in Iraq, and a third of the old city of Aleppo, in Syria, are rubble. Hundreds of minarets, monasteries and monuments have been toppled. Of the world’s 38 endangered cultural-heritage sites, 22 are in the Middle East, says UNESCO, the UN’s cultural arm. “It’s Europe after the second world war,” says Michael Danti of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), which tracks the destruction.
The jihadists of Islamic State (IS) like to boast of their role in the wreckage. They have filmed themselves razing ancient temples, churches and mosques. So they do not quibble when their adversaries heap most of the blame on them for destroying the region’s heritage. “Responsibility of this devastation is laid firmly at the doorstep of ISIS,” said Major-General Joseph Martin, the commander of coalition forces in Mosul, after the jihadists blew up a medieval minaret in the city.
But the American and Russian armies, along with their local allies, have inflicted at least as much damage in their war on the jihadists. Data compiled by ASOR shows that IS damaged 15 religious sites in Mosul. The American-led coalition’s operation to recapture the city damaged 47, of which 38 were largely destroyed. Russian air strikes in support of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator, have damaged such treasures as the pillars where Saint Simeon the Hermit is said to have perched for 40 years. Mr Assad’s barrel-bombs have destroyed ancient buildings across Syria; so have the explosives of Western-backed rebels.
Ready, fire, aim
In 2011 the International Council of Museums (ICOM) supplied NATO with a list of heritage sites, and their co-ordinates, in Libya, which the alliance avoided in its bombing campaign. But the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has been less scrupulous with the list that it received. Air strikes have hit the national museum in Dhamar, with its 12,500 artefacts; the Great Dam of Marib, an ancient engineering wonder; and the al-Qasimi complex of mud-brick towers in the old city of Sana’a. The best protection for the artefacts is often to leave them underground, says Hanna Pennock, a former director of ICOM.
Most of the smugglers get away. The Metropolitan Police in London, home to one of the world’s busiest antiquities markets, suspended its art and antiques unit in June. The authorities in the Arab world have more immediate priorities—or do not exist. Local truces have calmed much of Libya, but the country no longer has an effective department of antiquities to safeguard the country’s treasures. It has fallen to a ragtag band of fighters to protect Leptis Magna, the home town of Septimius Severus, a second-century Roman emperor, from less historically minded militants.
Reconstruction is often a euphemism for the final act of destruction. Antiquities experts mourn the treasures buried beneath the areas of Beirut that were redeveloped after its civil war. Land prospecting in Aleppo, often by cronies of Mr Assad, has already begun. Some treasures might survive. The floodlights are back on at the city’s majestic 12th-century citadel. The old city’s clock tower should soon peal for the first time in six years. Some facades, too, might get a facelift. But the foundations for tower-blocks that might soon soar over the city would tear through layers of an 8,000-year-old archaeological site. “Bulldozers,” bemoans an archaeologist, “can be even more damaging than tanks.”
From Art Guard
The recent seizure of a 2,300 year-old Roman vase that had long been on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art shined a spotlight on an attitude that pervades the art market and affects not only looted antiquities but stolen art, as well. If there was any suspicion by the Met that the vase was looted and illegally transported out of Italy we won’t know. They certainly should have connected the dots since the dealer through which the piece originally passed was convicted 10 years ago for having brokered another vase to the Met that was looted and returned to Italy.
It’s too easy for a museum to look the other way and claim problems with provenance or nonexistent records. Museums throughout the world are no doubt in possession of an unfathomable number of artifacts and relics that rightly belong to the country of origin.
When it comes to stolen art and artifacts the circumstances are a little less gray but some of the players no more virtuous. Granted it would be hard to find any institution willing to purchase The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, maybe the most iconic of the paintings stolen from the Gardner, or the Bacon’s or Warhol’s, stolen in the last year in Spain (several are still missing) and Missouri respectively (all still missing). We can only hope they haven’t been destroyed. But works of lesser artists and other artistic objects can be laundered in various ways to find themselves without proper provenance or with vague identities. In particular, too little effort is applied to finding rightful owners of artifacts of historical or religious significance. The UNESCO convention has placed pressure on institutions to apply more rigorous standards to identifying the origins of a piece that may have been looted. Applying the convention to stolen art that is privately held and sold is more difficult, leaving sellers and buyers to their own ethical restraints. And where enough money is involved, restraints can soften considerably. With too many people willing to look the other way the opportunities to succeed with theft increase. We only hear about what people want to publicize, which is just the tip of the iceberg. Protecting your assets by having a properly blended security system that is always on is the only prudent defense against theft.
Reposted from asisonline.org
Security Management has partnered with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) to bring you relevant articles on key management topics and strategies. This article by Roy Maurer discusses the merits of a yearlong employee onboarding program.
New employee onboarding is the process of integrating a new employee with a company and its culture, as well as getting a new hire the tools and information needed to become a productive member of the team.
Onboarding new hires at an organization should be a strategic process that lasts at least one year, staffing and HR experts say, because how employers handle the first few days and months of a new employee's experience is crucial to ensuring high retention.
Getting Started with the Onboarding Process
Finding the best candidates for positions in your organization is only part of building an effective team. The process of onboarding new employees can be one of the most critical factors in ensuring recently hired talent will be productive, contented workers.
However, in some organizations, onboarding is often confused with orientation. While orientation might be necessary—paperwork and other routine tasks must be completed—onboarding is a comprehensive process involving management and other employees that can last up to 12 months.
Before implementing a formal onboarding program, employers should answer some key questions to attain team and upper management buy-in, including:
Once these questions have been answered, HR professionals and upper management can devise a plan of action to help new employees quickly assimilate company policies and workflow while getting fully acquainted with the organization's culture.
Creating an Onboarding Program
"If we don't worry about onboarding before the employee starts, then we're way behind," said Ben Peterson, CEO of BambooHR, an HR technology company. "Rather than having a stack of papers waiting for their signature, send them out to the employee beforehand, for electronic signature. Give them their benefits selection. Find the technology to help you automate the paper-pushing process."
As soon as new employees receive a job offer, they can also receive access to the company's online onboarding portal, said Amber Hyatt, director of product marketing at SilkRoad, a talent management solutions firm.
"Here they discover content that's designed to engage them, like a friendly note from their manager, first-day information, welcome messages and photos from new teammates, a glossary of company acronyms, a virtual copy of your employee handbook as well as other details about the new hire's department and job responsibilities," she said.
New-hire portals also benefit HR through dashboards that can organize and track tasks that need to be completed and managed electronically, such as W-4 or I-9, benefits and payroll forms, Hyatt said.
In addition to having new employees fill out new-hire paperwork online, consider providing the answers to questions they may have, such as where to go on day one, who to ask for upon arrival and what to wear, she said.
Set up new hires' desk, phone, computer and password logins before they arrive, said Peterson.
"The worst thing for a new employee is being wooed through the recruiting process and then arriving on the job and the receptionist isn't even expecting you or your office isn't set up," he said.
The First Day
The two main goals on the first day should be setting expectations and introducing objectives. Employees need to have crystal clear ideas about what their job duties and responsibilities are on Day 1, Peterson said.
"New employees need to get to know the job and get to know their new co-workers. Social interaction is critical. You want them back on Day 2, right?" he asked.
New employees at BambooHR are taken out to lunch on the first day. "We cared enough to hire them, we want them to know we care enough to build rapport," Peterson said.
Aligning expectations is critical.
"Organizations that don't focus on acclimating new employees to their corporate culture are at a significant disadvantage," said Hyatt. "Employees who know what to expect from their company's culture and work environment make better decisions that are more aligned with the accepted practices of the company."
To keep existing team members from resenting a new employee, make sure roles and responsibilities are outlined for the entire team, Peterson advised.
"Sometimes existing team members could feel threatened that someone new could take over their responsibilities. So it's a good idea to clarify the position of the new hire as well as [the positions of] other team members whose work is closely related, how they'll interact with each other, and how projects will run," he said.
The First Few Months
It's important for HR to have a one-month check-in to make sure that that the new employee is comfortable, happy and engaged, said Peterson. "Reviewing and giving thoughtful feedback on your new hire's early contributions are also important during onboarding," he said.
According to a BambooHR survey, three-fourths of new hires said training during the first week on the job is most important to them. Meanwhile, 41 percent of HR professionals felt they needed to update training in onboarding.
"If you aren't communicating what new hires are supposed to be doing and arming them with the tools to do it properly, you're setting them up to fail," Peterson said.
You also don't want to inundate your new hires with too much information.
"While it's important to get your new hire ramped up and productive quickly, you also need to make sure you provide on-the-job training in a manageable flow," he said.
Hopefully, new hires have picked a mentor by the end of the first month, Peterson added. Fifty-six percent of respondents in the BambooHR study said that having a buddy or mentor at work was very important when getting started.
The Aberdeen Group report found that high-performing organizations are nearly two-and-a-half times more likely than lower-performing employers to assign a mentor or coach during the onboarding process.
"Mentoring programs can be as simple as assigning a new employee a go-to person or having an elaborate team of mentors for any questions that might arise," Hyatt said.
The First Three to Six Months
Peterson advised HR to conduct another check-in between three and six months, depending on the employee and the role.
"Unfortunately, only 15 percent of companies continue onboarding after six months," he said. Remember, nearly 90 percent of employees decide whether to stay or go within that first six months. "You have a huge impact on that choice. Sometimes you just have to show that you sincerely care," he said.
The First Year
"An employee's performance at the end of the first year will prove if they're fully productive," said Peterson. "Now you can plan for future development. Show them what their career looks like at the company. Sadly, sometimes they don't belong there," he said.
The end of the first year is when traditional onboarding transitions into retention and employee satisfaction.
"Shift from on-the-job training to continuous development. It's also a great time to have the compensation conversation," Peterson said.
"Your new hires will thank you for setting them up on the path to success and your company will be well on its way to turning those new hires into seasoned employees."
Reposted from The New York Times (security management daily)
A 23-year-old Oklahoma man has been arrested after he tried to blow up a bank in downtown Oklahoma City using a vehicle bomb similar to the one that destroyed the federal building there in 1995, federal officials said Monday.
The man, Jerry Drake Varnell, had been plotting the attack for months, the authorities said, but was thwarted by a long-running undercover investigation led by an F.B.I. joint terrorism task force.
Mr. Varnell was arrested early Saturday after he parked a van loaded with what he believed to be a working explosive device in an alley next to the bank, and then dialed a number on a cellphone that he thought would set it off, federal officials said. The device was inert and could not explode, the officials said.
According to court documents, Mr. Varnell had espoused an anti-government ideology and had expressed an interest in carrying out an attack that would echo the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, which killed 168 people.
The bank Mr. Varnell was said to target — the downtown branch of BancFirst, Oklahoma’s largest state-chartered bank — is about a half-mile from the site of that attack.
During a meeting in June with an undercover F.B.I. agent posing as someone who could help him, Mr. Varnell said that he wanted to start the next revolution and that he identified with what is known as 3 percenter ideology, according to an affidavit filed in support of the federal criminal complaint against him. Mr. Varnell sought to form and arm a small militia group, inspired in part by the movie “Fight Club,” the authorities said.
“I’m out for blood,” Mr. Varnell wrote in one text message to a confidential informant who cooperated with the authorities, according to the affidavit, which was written by an F.B.I. special agent. “When militias start getting formed I’m going after government officials when I have a team,” he wrote. The complaint did not name the informant.
In another text message, Mr. Varnell wrote: “I think I’m going to go with what the okc bomber used. Diesel and anhydrous ammonia.” He was referring to Timothy J. McVeigh, who was executed for the Oklahoma City bombing. Mr. McVeigh and a co-conspirator, Terry L. Nichols, built a giant fertilizer bomb using ammonium nitrate and racing fuel as their primary ingredients. Mr. Varnell later told the informant to get him ammonium nitrate, adding, “That’s all I need,” according to court documents.
Federal law enforcement officials said the public was not in danger at any time.
“There was never a concern that our community’s safety or security was at risk during this investigation,” Kathryn Peterson, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I. in Oklahoma, said in a statement. “I can assure the public, without hesitation, that we had Varnell’s actions monitored every step of the way.”
The bombing case appeared to have started in December, when the confidential informant told the F.B.I. that Mr. Varnell wanted to bomb the Washington building that houses the offices of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. Mr. Varnell appeared to be especially angry with the banking and financial data system, and expressed interest in attacking corporate data centers and facilities known as server farms, including those run by Facebook and Bank of America, the authorities said.
He told both the informant and the undercover F.B.I. agent that he did not want to kill “a bunch of people.” But when the undercover agent told him in June that any bombing might kill one or more people, Mr. Varnell responded, “You got to break a couple of eggs to make an omelet,” according to the affidavit.
Mr. Varnell also wrote a statement that he wanted posted on Facebook after the bombing, and sent it to the informant, the authorities said. The statement refers to the bombing as an act of “retaliation” for government actions that he said restricted Americans’ freedom.
“It was a wake-up call to both the government and the people,” Mr. Varnell’s statement said, according to officials.
A variety of militia groups around the country regard themselves as 3 percenters. The term comes from their belief, debunked by historians, that only 3 percent of American colonists fought in the Revolution. These groups reject characterizations of them as racist or anti-government, describing themselves instead as pro-Constitution, pro-gun and, in many cases, pro-President Trump.
The movement’s logo, the Roman numeral III encircled by stars, was visible on at least one of the heavily armed, camouflage-clad militia members at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Militia leaders claimed to be neutral and told reporters they were not affiliated with either the white nationalists or the counterprotesters.
Mr. Varnell lives in Sayre, Okla., with his mother and other relatives. The authorities said that he had been outfitting a bunker next to his home with end-of-the-world supplies and that he had spoken to the informant of using marijuana and methamphetamine. He was arrested in 2013 in Weatherford, Okla., and charged with domestic assault and battery by strangulation; it was not immediately clear how that case was resolved.
Reposted from govtech.com
Why is cybersecurity culture so important to organizational success? How can you build a culture of effective security? What are the actions, tips and steps that can help strengthen your cyberculture? Here's a primer.
While running on my treadmill on Thursday morning, August 17, 2017, I was watching CNBC’s Squawk Box, as David Novak, co-founder and former CEO of YUM Brands, came on the show as a guest.
He was asked how he was so successful at growing such a powerful set of global YUM Brands with great results including names like Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Burger King and others. His answer made me slow the treadmill to a walk and listen closely.
He said several things, but his clear messages focused on building a great culture with a set of core values and staff recognition. Here’s what stood out to me (paraphrased):
Success is all about the culture. Great leaders know your core values and are true to them. What messages are you sending to your employees? Are you recognizing and rewarding your staff?
As an aside: David Novak elaborates further on the recognition theme in this earlier article and video from last year. He challenged all of us to say “thank you” to employees and everyone in our lives more often. He even wrote this fun book on the 10 principles of recognition called O Great One!: A Little Story About the Awesome Power of Recognition.
Near the end of his Squawk Box interview, the topic of what actions to take on several global cybersecurity issues came up. Becky Quick asked Novak what the Trump administration should do about China stealing our intellectual property via computer hacking.
Novak said we need win-win answers that will work for both countries. Despite serious problems that require tough negotiations, we need to be positive in our approach, while enforcing laws and acting on areas where we have international agreement.
Issue One: Back to Security Culture
Management guru Peter Drucker is attributed with the well-known saying, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." And while there are hundreds of books and thousands of articles on building great work cultures, not nearly as much is written about creating a positive enterprise culture emphasizing cybersecurity in the workplace.
So how can we lead a digital transformation that is also people-focused and security-focused at the same time? Here are a few of the common answers I have seen around the Internet over the past few years:
For several years now, the typical answers included a central focus on effective security awareness training for all employees as well as the need for management buy-in and business leadership for cybersecurity.
Nevertheless, digging a bit deeper, here are, in my view, seven keys to building a lasting security culture that can outlive individual security incidents and staff turnover.
1) Genuine Executive Priority and Support — We all know that children watch (and usually follow) what their parents do and not just what they say. In the same way staff learn what the real priorities are from executive actions. Are managers walking the talk? Are resources backing up the executive memos?
For example, when I was CSO is Michigan government, Gov. Rick Snyder was a true champion for cybersecurity in the state, and in the nation, who frequently discussed cyberactions at cabinet meetings and led by example. If this executive priority focus is missing, you will struggle to succeed in the other areas in the long run. Consider these suggestions to build management support for cybersecurity.
2) Honest Risk Assessment to Measure Security Culture Now — What is the security posture currently? How are security audit findings addressed? What are real technology and security priorities? Are there metrics and/or dashboards to measure progress?
3) A Clear Vision of Where You Want Your Security Culture to Be — A lot has been written about benchmarking and following best practices in cybersecurity. One important question is whether you know where you are heading. What is the vision of what success looks like for your security and technology teams?
Consider visiting your industry peers and learning from other public- and private-sector organizations that are doing cybersecurity culture well. Look at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) award-winners, NGA best practices and state and local partners in your region. Consider a road trip to learn from others and benchmarking progress.
For example, back in 2011-2012, Stu Davis the Ohio CIO, brought a team up to Michigan to see how we built our security architectures and governance. Ohio state government used that visit and follow-on conversations to build an excellent cybersecurity program.
4) Do You Have a Cyber Plan? — Many state governments have published cybersecurity plans to clearly describe where they are going, who’s involved, and what the expectations are for various groups. Examples include Michigan, Delaware, Missouri, North Carolina and others.
5) Clear Cybercommunication to the Masses — Great, you have a plan and specific actions steps. But does anyone know what’s happening? What is the elevator pitch? How well are these messages received? Is the communication flowing both ways? Are you getting feedback?
Communicating cybermessages is an ongoing challenge, and no leader has done that better over the past year than Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe — who has made cybersecurity the top topic during his year as NGA leader.
6) End User Security Awareness Training for Everyone. This Includes Managers, System Admins and Other Specific Roles — As mentioned several times above, culture change definitely involves offering intriguing, relevant, updated, timely training that is brief, frequent and focused to the entire enterprise.
And while this is the area that is the one most often discussed regarding security culture change, it is only one component. Still, this cannot be a check-the-box exercise and be successful. I described this effective cybertraining area in much more detail in this recent interview with MicroAgility CEO Sajid Khan.
7) Celebrate Success with Food and Fun. Find out if security is a part of business DNA? How do you know what people are engaged in? Answer: See what they celebrate. When are their food and family showing up for awards?
Ask this question of your organization: When do you celebrate success? Assuming this is happening at all, are people rewarded for doing the right things regarding security? Any bonuses for great cyberetiquette or awards for doing the right things?
Here are some specific examples to ponder. And here are some cultural mistakes to avoid with security training.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, building a healthy security culture is not a one-time project or one-year focus. Like building a great college football program at schools like Alabama, this is an ongoing challenge that must be repeated as the organization changes.
For more details, I really like this ISSA series of CISO mentoring talks, which provide many practical tips for security leaders to consider from CISOs who have been successful in different industries over many years. Following their advice is a great way to enhance your culture of cybersecurity.
Finally, I want to close with this quote from David Novak on the greatest challenge facing leaders today.
“Seven in 10 employees in the U.S. are not engaged. They're going to work and they can't wait to go home," he said.
Novak said great companies create environments where everyone counts and is valued.
That’s why your corporate or government culture is so central to organizational success.
Is security a piece of your culture change efforts?
Reposted from the Chicago Tribune (security management daily)
The American workplace is grueling, stressful and surprisingly hostile.
So concludes an in-depth study of 3,066 U.S. workers by the Rand Corp., Harvard Medical School and the University of California, Los Angeles. Among the findings:
- Nearly one in five workers — a share the study calls "disturbingly high" — say they face a hostile or threatening environment at work, which can include sexual harassment and bullying. Workers who have to face customers endure a disproportionate share of abuse.
- Nearly 55 percent say they face "unpleasant and potentially hazardous" conditions.
- Nearly three quarters say they spend at least a fourth of their time on the job in "intense or repetitive physical" labor. "I was surprised at how physically demanding jobs were," says lead author Nicole Maestas, a Harvard Medical School economist.
- Telecommuting is rare: 78 percent say they are required to be present in their workplace during working hours.
- Only 38 percent say their jobs offer good prospects for advancement. And the older they get, the less optimistic they become.
- About half say they work on their own time to meet the demands of their job.
"Wow — (work) is pretty taxing place for many people," Maestas says. "I was surprised by how pressured and hectic the workplace is."
In many cases, less-educated workers endure tougher working conditions. For example, fewer than half of men without college degrees can take a break whenever they want to, compared to more than 76 percent of men with college degrees. Likewise, nearly 68 percent of men without degrees spend at least a fourth of their time moving heavy loads.
Maestas wonders whether toxic working conditions are keeping Americans out of the labor force. The percentage of Americans who are working or looking for work — 62.9 percent in July — has not returned to pre-recession levels and is well below its 2000 peak of 67.3 percent.
The unemployment rate is at a 16-year low, and many employers complain they can't fill jobs.
"There's a message for employers here," Maestas says. "Working conditions really do matter."
Not everything about American workplaces is grim. Workers enjoy considerable autonomy: more than 80 percent say they get to solve problems and try out their own ideas. Moreover, 58 percent say their bosses are supportive, and 56 percent say they have good friends at work.
The first-time survey of Americans ages 25-71 was carried out in 2015. It is similar to a long-running European survey, and researchers plan to conduct another survey next year and eventually to draw comparisons between U.S. and European working conditions.
After events in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend showed how much violence white nationalist rallies could provoke, police chiefs from Richmond, Va., to Boston were taking steps to avoid a repeat of a situation in which the police appeared to have little control of the crowd.
Texas A&M University canceled a “white lives matter” rally at which Richard Spencer, a white supremacist leader, was to appear, citing safety concerns. Officials in Mountain View, Calif., where Google has its headquarters, were gearing up for one of several marches at the company’s offices around the country to protest the firing of a male employee who wrote a memo criticized as sexist.
Rallies like the one in Charlottesville, fueled by overt displays of racism, attended by members of self-described militias, and attracting counterprotesters, pose novel challenges: Many of the demonstrators are legally and openly carrying firearms, including semiautomatic weapons. And instead of protesters versus police, as has often been the case in recent years, the situation is civilian versus civilian, with some participants spoiling for a fight.
But to deal with these new circumstances, the police have few new tactics.
Crowd-control techniques are much the same, experts said, whether demonstrators are armed or not. A crucial technique is keeping opposing sides apart, which the police tried and failed to do in Charlottesville on Saturday. In the hours leading up to the planned rally, people fought in full view of police officers. On Monday, a man was charged with driving a car into a crowd of counterdemonstrators, killing a woman and injuring more than a dozen others. The actual rally was called off by the police after the governor declared a state of emergency.
“Charlottesville turned into a riot,” said Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston, where a free speech rally was thought to be planned for Saturday, although some of the details were murky. “Both sides were able to connect. In our city, we will do everything we can that those two sides never connect.”
Mayor Walsh said that Boston wanted to discourage the rally’s organizers from coming, and that William B. Evans, the police commissioner, was developing a plan to keep the rally and any counterdemonstrations separate. By late Monday, it appeared that some of the billed speakers were backing out.
But if there is a rally, unlike the authorities in Charlottesville, officials in Boston will probably not be forced to confront a large number of armed protesters because Massachusetts allows only those with a gun license to openly carry a firearm. In Virginia, no license is required for those over 18.
In South Carolina, where there were dozens of protests related to the removal of the Confederate battle flag from government buildings, firearms are prohibited from the State Capitol grounds. Leroy Smith, the state director of public safety, said that intense anger over such issues combined with the presence of firearms would have been a toxic mix.
“With the added element of open carry, it creates more of a challenge for law enforcement officers because usually when you see a weapon and that person is not a law enforcement officer, you know you need to defuse the situation,” he said.
Many urban police chiefs have opposed open-carry laws, even in states where people feel fiercely protective of their gun rights.
John Eterno, a former training instructor with the New York Police Department who now teaches at Molloy College, said the presence of weapons combined with the unexpectedly large crowds in Charlottesville might have thrown off that city’s planning. When people have the right to carry firearms, the police must balance caution with respect, he said. Officers can do little more than check the person’s demeanor for signs of aggression and monitor whether the firearm is properly holstered.
The Charlottesville police have faced a hailstorm of criticism from protesters and counterprotesters alike. Witnesses have said officers did little as violent confrontations unfolded in front of them.
On Monday, officials defended their response, noting the lack of property damage in the city, and the Virginia governor said little could have been done to prevent a driver from hitting pedestrians.
At a news conference on Monday afternoon, Al Thomas, the Charlottesville police chief, acknowledged that there were times when police officers were spread too thinly. “We had to actually send out forces to multiple locations to deal with a number of disturbances,” Chief Thomas said. He added: “It was certainly a challenge. We were spread thin once the groups dispersed.”
But he also noted a central problem with the strategy of keeping opponents away from each other: The police cannot always control who is going to go where. “We did make attempts to keep the two sides separate. However, we cannot control which side someone enters the park,” Chief Thomas said.
He said that there had been a plan to keep the Unite the Right rally separate from counterprotesters, but that few cooperated.
Virginia’s governor, Terry McAuliffe, cited a police estimate that 80 percent of the protesters and counterprotesters were armed, and that the militias, who described themselves as neutral peacekeepers, had arsenals superior to that of the police. But Chief Thomas denied that his officers were “intimidated by the firepower of the alt-right.”
Officers began the day in regular uniform. “Once the violence erupted, once the plan was altered, we had to quickly transition our officers into their protective gear,” Chief Thomas said.
Charlottesville had known that it would be ill prepared. The city, fearing that many more than the estimated 400 people would attend, said it would issue the permit only if the location were moved.
“Because Emancipation Park is a relatively confined space of just over one acre in a densely populated urban area with limited parking space, it is unable to accommodate safely even a peaceful crowd of this size,” the city manager, Maurice Jones, warned rally organizers in a letter on Aug. 7.
“The city’s law enforcement, fire and emergency medical personnel cannot adequately protect people in and around Emancipation Park due to the number of anticipated attendees trying to occupy such a small and confined space.”
The city wanted to move the protest to another park, but the American Civil Liberties Union successfully argued in federal court on behalf of Jason Kessler, the organizer of the event, that the city was retaliating against him because of the “content” of his speech, citing the fact that none of the counterprotesters’ permits were revoked. Thousands attended.
The leaders of the Unite the Right rally have pledged to return to Charlottesville.
This weekend, the mayor of Lexington, Ky., announced plans to try to take down two Confederate statues.
The chief of police in Lexington said he had already spoken with officials in Charlottesville for details on what worked and what had not.
“You’ll have people feeling passionate wanting to come in, but you’ll also have professional protesters who want to come in and fight. We’ll be prepared for them also,” said the chief, Mark Barnard.
But, he added, “You can have as much intelligence about the groups and their past behavior, you can have all planning and all the training, but you can’t predict what will go on.” Kentucky is an open-carry state.
He said he doubted the city would give permits to groups with opposing views to speak from the same location at the same time.
“You wouldn’t allow that,” he said. “You’d have to make a decision and have it at a different time. But it doesn’t mean the other side won’t show up.”
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