Millennium Bug remains a pest for business, says survey
Despite widespread reports the Millennium Bug had been squashed before the 2000 date change, more than 100 significant Y2K related failures were reported throughout the world in January.
According to figures collated by the KPMG/British Bankers Association Year 2000 Research Centre, these failures ranged from the serious – reported failures in nuclear power plants and the US nuclear arsenal – to the inconvenient, with problems reported in the new MP3 Internet music system.
Some 67 of these incidents were in the first seven days of the month, 23 in the remaining three weeks. However it is thought the actual number is much higher, with a number of incidents having not been made the public.
Malcolm Marshall, KPMG Information Risk Management Partner said: ‘In the UK a survey by the Office of National Statistics found 5% of companies reporting some sort of adverse impact on computer systems arising from the millennium date change.’
He added: ‘Y2k problems are still emerging – especially in government and in the general area of e-commerce. Organisations need to remain vigilant around the key dates of the leap year and end of months.’
Meanwhile, a survey of 1160 companies by the Office for National Statistics found just 0.3 per cent of companies (14 firms) said their activities had been negatively affected by Y2K during the last week of January.
The result compared with 0.6 per cent of companies which reported an adverse effect in previous week.