Accounting Firm Makes Both Physical and Electronic Copies—But Business Is Threatened by Fire
A New Jersey accountant had his office in a building that also housed a small trucking firm. The accountant had dutifully made electronic backups of his clients’ tax returns and put another copy in his filing cabinet along with the rest of his important documents. He also arranged with another accountant to hold additional copies of each other’s files. Unfortunately, the trucking firm had a fire that wiped out most of the building and caused the accountant to lose both the electronic and physical copies of all his records. He was able, however, to maintain his business only because he had provided for another copy to be stored off site.

Source: Reported to Internet Security Alliance while researching the Common Sense Guide to Cyber Security for Small Businesses, February 2004

Small Manufacturing Company Loses Major Government Work Due to Software “Time Bomb”
A northeast manufacturing firm captured contracts worth several million dollars to make measurement and instrumentation devices for NASA and the US Navy. However, one morning workers found themselves unable to log on to the operating system, instead getting a message that the system was “under repair.” Shortly after, the company’s server crashed, eliminating all the plant’s tooling and manufacturing programs. When the manager went to get the back up tapes, he found they were gone and the individual workstations had also been wiped out. The company’s CFO testified that the software bomb had destroyed all the programs and code generators that allowed the firm to customize their products and thus lower costs. The company subsequently lost millions of dollars, was dislodged from its position in the industry, and eventually had to lay off 80 workers. The company can take some solace in the fact that the guilty party was eventually arrested and convicted.

Source: The CERT Coordination Center, Carnegie Mellon University, 2001