Major Hurricane Earl has re-strengthened to category four status in the last 24 hours as it continues to track north-northwest, threatening portions of the US mid-Atlantic coast. A direct landfall is not forecast by the NHC “best track” at this stage. However, Earl could still bring hurricane force winds to the outer banks of North Carolina as it bypasses within the next 24 hours as a cat 3 hurricane.

Vodafone UK has attained the globally recognised ISO/IEC 27001:2005 (ISO 27001) certification relating to the provision of IT services such as application hosting, data management, technical support and consultancy for its business customers.

A report into the hacking of corporate security networks shows that a vast majority come across a misconfigured network – which, according to that 76% of the sample, was the easiest IT resource to exploit.

Marsh has launched a specialist contamination insurance product for water utility firms globally. The product is the first of its kind to offer coverage for drinking water contamination, including losses associated with a terrorist attack, extortion costs and goodwill payments to customers.

The Financial Services Authority has fined the UK branch of Zurich Insurance Plc £2,275,000 for failing to have adequate systems and controls in place to prevent the loss of customers’ confidential information. The fine is the highest levied to date on a single firm for data security failings.

With the National Hurricane Center projecting that Hurricane Earl could impact the Mid-Atlantic region by tomorrow (Thursday), Zurich is advising businesses to ensure storm preparations are made.

Aon Risk Solutions has appointed Craig Preston, currently chief commercial officer (CCO) of Aon’s Crisis Management business, as area director responsible for Aon Corporate’s Reading and Southampton offices. John Harris, currently executive director with regional responsibilities for ACM UK and Ireland, will be taking over as global CCO of Crisis Management.

Swiss reinsurer Glacier Re is to be placed in to run-off. This decision was made after its subsidiary, Glacier Insurance, was sold to Torus Insurance in May this year. The company said in a statement that it believes its move to be "the most beneficial course of action for shareholders given the current underwriting conditions".

The offshore oil and gas industry has been warned about its safety record as new statistics show increases in major injuries and unplanned hydrocarbon releases. HSE figures show that there were 50 major injuries reported in 2009/10 − up 20 on 2008/09 and higher than the average of 42 over the previous five years.

Aon Benfield has appointed Chris Myers as head of rating agency advisory for UK, Europe and EMEA.

ICM Continuity Services has won a record £3.44m a year contract to provide a London-based global financial services group with dedicated stand-by capabilities. The five and a half year bespoke agreement will see ICM provide one of the largest dedicated UK stand-by dealing capabilities to be located outside of the City of London.

Discontinuation of a government-mandated terrorism backstop would have an adverse effect on the long-term availability and affordability of terrorism insurance, warns Marsh.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) warns that businesses have less than half the time indicated in a DECC announcement last week to get ready for the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) deadline.

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