I sat down to write this blog and realised I haven’t blogged for a while. Now to be fair I have an excuse. I have been travelling and when you are teaching for the military you don’t have access t the web so that’s excuse number 1. Excuse number 2 is when you arrive at your usual hotel they tell you that the wireless connection is kaput!

Anyway back it’s back to normal for a while at least! Now that we are in the holiday season many businesses are experiencing a major DoS attack! What do you mean Andy? Well snow that’s what. It’s causing major problems in Europe and the Eastern US. Here in the UK a couple of inches causes chaos whereas in other parts of Europe for example the Nordics snow is an everyday occurrence so incident response plans are setup to co-ordinate how to get services back to normal. My points is that if your business is mission critical then ensure you have some form of incident response plan in place.

Well as we approach the end of 2009 I must admit I won’t be sorry to see it go. Myself like many others have had a mixed year of ups and downs. Financial crisis, customers going bankrupt, budgets slashed and contracts cancelled sound familiar? This year my family also dealt with the death of a close family member and also the fragmentation this causes.

On looking at the highs in 2009, our Cybercrime events have been great, we have also won a number of new clients which always keeps the wolf away from the door. This year I also spoke at Microsoft Tech-Ed in LA and in Berlin which was fabulous. Next year is looking good also with potential trips to Dubai, Sweden, Berlin, New Orleans to name but a few.

The other day I was asked if I could say one word which would describe what 2009 has meant to me, it would be friendship! Walking into a restaurant in Berlin expecting to meet no one you suddenly discover that it’s full of friends and folks who mean so much. For that I am truly thankful.

Finally I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and that 2010 will be a great year ahead. Happy holidays everyone :0)