Samsung has a strong, well-respected and valuable global brand ... which is why the flaming Galaxy Note 7 debacle must be so embarrassing for Samsung. Having to recall the model after several spectacular fires was bad enough, but then releasing a flawed and similarly dangerous replacement turned a disaster into a $4bn PR nightmare , where PR = Product Recall = Public Relations.  "The cancellation of the Galaxy Note 7 has been an unprecedented public relations disaster for Samsung, the world’s largest maker of smartphones. It has also cost the company billions of dollars and, for some critics in South Korea, even called into question the very business model that has made Samsung so successful."  [ NY Times ] Samsung's press conference about the incident was both useful and frustrating: "The culprit proved to be two separate flaws with two separate batteries. One was a design flaw that led to the first recall. The second was a manufacturing error introduced after Samsu...

In all sorts of contexts, and for reasons rooted in brain biology, we often focus or obsess about the wrong things. We fear flying more than the road trip to/from the airport. We are terrified of cancer, but tolerate obesity and do our level best to ignore heart disease. We are petrified of driverless vehicles, while downplaying their safety, economic and social advantages relative to human-driven vehicles. "Foreigners" (especially Russians and Chinese, it seems) and terrorists are clearly out to get us, more so than our own governments, our friends and relatives, and just about everyone else for that matter, including ourselves! Gun-ownership is fine but guns are dangerous. Cellphone masts are patently  evil (especially in/near schools), whereas the cellphones clasped to our heads or pocketed next to our crown jewels are good ... Seems to me this is a widespread issue with risk management in general, including but going well beyond information risk management. It’s a sad ind...

Quake map courtesy of  GeoNet.co.nz An idea came to me in bed this morning: smartphones have the capability to identify and measure phone movements in three dimensions, thanks to their built-in positional sensors. So, with the appropriate app, my smartphone sat on my bedside table ought to be able to recognise when it is being shaken about violently in the middle of the night, and alert me to an earthquake in progress. I distinctly remember waking up a few minutes past midnight during the big Kaikoura earthquake  last November, and being utterly befuddled about what was happening. I was still fast asleep when the initial jolt came, and it took me a little while to stir by which time we were into a period of gentler but strong rolling movements, enough to set the bedroom light swinging. I wasn't awake enough to react, as I should have done, doing the 'drop, cover, hold' thing. Instead, I just laid there in a bit of a daze, blinking up at the pendulous light and wondering wha...

We're busy preparing February's security awareness module on the topic of surveillance . As often happens, what we anticipated would be a fairly narrow and specific issue has mushroomed before our very eyes as we've delved into the writing. We're now looking at surveillance on the population by the authorities, by the organization on workers and third parties, by third party organizations on workers, and by individuals on each other ... The awareness module covers a fascinatingly diverse patchwork of information risks e.g. industrial espionage and intelligence, health and safety, network and physical security monitoring, oversight and supervision, privacy and confidentiality, office security, things , portable devices, artificial intelligence, hacking, malware and more. We've covered all of them separately but this is our chance to bring them together - an awareness story with with a novel perspective. The news story about a TV presenter's verbal comment alleg...