Winter weather warnings - and advice Feb 2012

The UK's mild winter came to an abrupt end last week as temperatures dropped and parts of the UK came to a standstill due to the snow. Hundreds of flights have been cancelled, trains have been delayed and sections of motorway have been completely closed.

Elsewhere in Europe, temperatures as low as -32.5°C have been reported in Romania, while Moscow suffered a low of -21°C. Worst hit appears to be Serbia where, according to The Guardian, around 11,000 people have been stranded in remote mountain villages, cut off by the heavy snow.

Luckily, the UK is unlikely to face conditions as severe as this but, with the AA warning that more than one in three drivers (38%) have done nothing to prepare for winter, even a short spell of wintry weather causes chaos on the roads - and at work.

Preparation is the key. The AA recommends winter tyres, packing the car with essentials such as a shovel and warm blankets, and making plans to avoid driving when bad weather hits.

We recommend advance planning too; keeping your staff safe and off the roads by informing them of office closures before they set off. Mobile messaging is the perfect way to do this. Most people carry a mobile phone with them, so contacting them by text is an easy and cost effective way to keep in touch with large groups of employees and indeed customers.

An extreme but practical example of SMS alerts in action can be seen in Indonesia, where Newmont Mining Corporation uses our emergency messaging system to trigger tsunami warnings. The mobile messages set off sirens, which alert miners and the surrounding communities to the possible danger. The system is also used to send text messages to employees, with more detailed information.

According to Peter Ferringo, Senior Manager Operations Support at the mine, "the technology helps the warnings to be more immediate and effective in alerting our communities and staff in case of an emergency."

For more information how mobile messaging solutions can help your business in severe weather visit us at: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hay-systems-ltd

follow us on Twitter @HSLSMS
or call us on +44 (0)1506 605 260

or email us at sales@haysystems.com

Secure Mobile Messaging #1

SMS is not a completely secure technology and therefore using SMS for communicating sensitive messages could have severe consequences if the message was intercepted,. The technology is adequately secure for a number of purposes such as chat between friends or colleagues, news alerts and entertainment or informational content. For these purposes the use of SMS is appropriate.


In reality the uses to which SMS are put are many and it is often too convenient a technology that leads to its use being inappropriate for some purposes.


The vertical sectors that can benefit the most from secure mobile messaging and to whom disclosure of a message can potentially be catastrophic are financial, law enforcement, government and aviation. Even although most benefit is typically achieved by theses sectors, secure mobile messaging also has a strong place across most most organisations.


Why is SMS not secure? There are a number of stages at which an SMS message can be intercepted. GSM addresses some of these stages but none sufficiently to deliver complete security. For a message being sent between two mobile users belonging to two different mobile networks the stages are: (1) air interface, (2) transmission links and switches, (3) SMSC platform, (4) transmission links and switches (origin network), (5) transmission links and switches (destination network) and (6) air interface. The air interfaces in stages (1) and (6) are typically secured using A5/1 or A5/3 encryption, the latter being less common but increasing in usage, however it is possible to intercept SMS to or from a specific handset if you are using the same cell as the target handset. Once the message is away from the air interface the message is being passed unencrypted through infrastructure forming the rest of an operator's network and through infrastructure belonging to other parties. It is when a message is traversing this infrastructure that it is at its most vulnerable, and where a sensitive message has the potential to be disclosed.


All it takes is an employee of a mobile operator with access to the relevant equipment or links to "open up" your message and read it. There have been cases in the past where mobile network engineers have snooped on SMS messages without authorisation. Such casual snooping can be easily hidden as being related to a legitimate task so as to not arouse suspicion. SMS messages have even been illegally snooped on by government officials.