WASHINGTON - If terrorists were to strike major US financial
centres, the business world would be jarred, but likely not
crippled, say industry officials.
The Sept 11, 2001 attacks caused the longest closure of the stock
markets since the 1930s, but financial institutions have since
installed sophisticated backup computer systems and far more
elaborate business continuity plans.
A new assault would disrupt trading only briefly, industry leaders
believed.
'In the past, Wall Street has had backup plans in theory, but they
were somewhat dusty,' said Ms Bethany Sherman, spokesman for Nasdaq
Stock Market, the largest electronic US stock exchange.
Today, 'all of our major systems are redundant, and in some cases
we have three backups'.
For example, New York-based Nasdaq has a data centre in Connecticut
and another backup centre in Maryland.
The exchange has boosted its computer power enough to handle the
trades for every stock listed on all US exchanges, Ms Sherman
said.
Even if the electricity failed all along the East Coast, the data
centres have several backup generators and enough diesel fuel to
keep systems humming for more than a week, she said.
Industry officials had been double-checking their
business-continuity plans since Sunday, when Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge announced 'new and unusually specific
information' about possible Al-Qaeda plans to use car and truck
bombs to attack financial institutions.
On Tuesday, Mr Ridge met New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor
George Pataki and financial executives in Manhattan.
He praised the industry for its 'numerous drills and exercises to
test backup systems'.
Industry executives said an attack should not disrupt services to
customers.
'We feel confident that if there were a (terrorist attack) at any
particular location, our business continuation plan would take over
and it would be business as usual,' Prudential spokesman Laurita
Warren said.
Mr John Hall, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association,
said bank customers had little to fear from a terrorist attack
because all banks were required by regulators to have disaster
plans and backups systems in place.
'Banks have a proven record of disaster recovery,' he said. They
routinely faced threats from natural disasters, such as fires,
earthquakes and hurricanes, so they were well prepared to recover
from a terrorist act.
Financial institutions also were stepping up physical security
measures. In Washington, traffic near the the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund backed up for several blocks in the
morning because of street closures and checkpoints where guards
used detectors on vehicles entering carparks. -- LAT-WP
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judging from the recent spate of blackouts, our power system does
not seem to have the kind of resiliency and sustainability as
mentioned above. what is going to happen when a major blackout, as
a result of mischief or accident, strikes our core installations
and centres that supports our economy?
also, not having faced any major disasters before, and hence not
having proven their worth in such situations, do our businesses and
the same installations and centres mentioned above have necessary
backup plans to ensure that it's business as usual if eventualities
should occur?
this is especially crucial for singapore since we are so dependent
on trade.
