Does cold weather affect business continuity?
Cold Weather and Business Continuity
Believe it or not, extremely cold weather does change the risk to your data:
Extremely cold weather (<20 degF) for more than 8-12 hours can result in frozen and burst pipes - so verify your office PC’s, battery backups, and any electrical cords are elevated at least 2 inches above the floor using a PC stand and proper cable management.
Your users are far more likely to use space heaters (and to forget to turn them off) - space heaters near PC’s will elevate their component temperatures, possibly to the point of heat damage. And space heaters left on are a leading cause of accidental fires.
With extremely cold weather businesses are more likely to have users work from home - don’t allow users to utilize laptops with ANY sensitive data unless the laptop hard drive is encrypted. It is safer to utilize GoToMyPC or LogMeIn for remote access to the user’s office workstation.
Over weekends with anticipated severe cold, it might be better to NOT bump down the thermostat!
