Computer system outages can cost some serious money...just ask Delta.

The numbers are in - and it's amazing how much a five hour system outage can cost!

The problem occurred when the company lost power at its operations center in Atlanta early on the morning of August 8, causing computers needed to book in passengers and fly jets to be down for nearly five hours.

The airline eventually canceled about 1,000 flights on the day of the outage and ground an additional 1,000 flights over the following two days. It also agreed to give affected customers refunds and vouchers for future travel.

The cost of the outage was disclosed in a presentation Delta made to investors Wednesday to the tune of $150 million. The losses came out of pre-tax profits, but the airline did not provide a break down of the various costs.

Delta is not the only airline to experience these kinds of computer problems recently.

British Airways was hit with its own computer problems on Tuesday. Southwest had to deal with a computer outage in July that resulted in canceled flights over three days.

Southwest said in an investor presentation on Wednesday that the outage hurt its quarterly revenue. The airline didn't place a precise dollar figure, but it did give ratios that would work out to at least a $177 million hit to passenger revenue.

Despite the news about the cost of the outages, and information from both airlines that fares continue to be lower than they were a year ago, airline stocks are up broadly as a group in trading Wednesday. The data on fares showed less of a decline than many investors had feared.

Clearly system outages cost some serious money. If you want to protect your business' important computer systems, call IES today at 781-816-9437 or email contactus@iesadvisors.com. We can help you prevent a costly outage.

How to get rich. Finally, we have the answer!

Ah, the age old question. How does one become rich?

Well…..I hate to break it to you, but if you are reading this because you specifically googled “How to get rich”, I would be happy to sell you some self-help books. Many of the people selling books that tell you “how to get rich” got rich by selling books that tell people “how to get rich”.

First off, I am not rich. That Nigerian Prince never fulfilled his end of the bargain and my “Jump to Conclusions Mat” never took off. (Credit to the movie Office Space).

In all seriousness, some people who go into business for themselves often start with this question. However, I do not believe that many of these folks last long. If becoming rich is your only motivation for starting a business, you are going to be pretty disappointed. Most successful entrepreneurs started their companies for freedom and because they believed in their product or service and wanted to radically change the marketplace. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be rich and it can happen if you work your butt off and play your cards right but it is not going to happen overnight. Getting rich takes hard work, risk, dedication, perseverance, intelligence, tact, and sacrifice.

Everyone wants to be rich. Have you met someone who wants to be poor? There is no reason that you cannot become rich. In fact, it is up to you. The road is paved but you must figure out how to get to your destination, no maps, no GPS; you don’t even have headlights on the car. And to make matters worse, you will have people trying to carjack you on your way because they want to be rich too.

If you have an idea and want to make it a reality, contact IES. We will help you through it the right way. We can't guarantee you'll be rich, but if you really put your mind to building your business, the possibilities are endless.

IES, Inc.
781-816-9437
iesAdvisors.com

Low on money? Know how to hack? Get on over to Facebook to "research" (a.k.a. hack).

Facebook has paid a $20,000 reward to a UK based security researcher for reporting a bug that hackers could've used to take over users' accounts. 

Last month, UK security researcher Jack Whitton found a way to hack into other users' Facebook accounts without their knowledge, simply by sending a text message to Facebook. 

The flaw, which Facebook has fixed, was in a Facebook service that lets users link their mobile phones with their accounts. This lets them log into Facebook using their phone number instead of their email address, and send profile updates via text message.

To activate this feature, a user sends a text message to Facebook, which texts back an authorization code. This code is what ties the user's device to their account. 

But Whitton found that Facebook's authorization code could be tweaked to work with other users accounts as well. This means a hacker could just change the password and gain complete control over the account.

Graham Cluely, an independent security analyst, says the bug could have had a widespread impact on Facebook users.

"This should – obviously – have been impossible, but due to a weakness in Facebook’s tangled nest of millions and millions of lines in code, potentially hundreds of millions of accounts were vulnerable to hijacking through the simple technique," Cluely said in a Friday blog post.

Whitton informed Facebook about the flaw May 23, and Facebook fixed it five days later. Facebook gave Whitton a shout-out on its list of "white hats," the term for researchers who find bugs and inform vendors instead of using them for financial gain.

Source:  Business Insider