28/06/2017 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Jamie

Another big cyber hack brings yet more disruption

As it reaches Australia we'll ask whether companies are doing

Live from London, that's our top story on Wednesday, 28th June.

Banks, retailers, energy firms and Kiev Airport in Ukraine

are among thousands targeted by the ransomware attack.

The troubled Japanese giant Toshiba says it will sue Western Digital,

accusing it of interfering in attempts to sell off

Europe closed down yesterday and it's down again this morning.

And in a global world, how important are national standards?

We'll be talking with the British Standards Institution

about keeping up with artificial intelligence, robots

And a superstitious passenger has delayed a flight in Shanghai

after throwing coins at the engine for good luck!

Today we want to know - have your good luck

Let us know. Just use the hashtag BBCBizLive.

Now, another huge cyber attack is affecting businesses

Those affected include banks, retailers, energy firms

It means many companies can't access their computer systems

and for some that means it's impossible

The virus was first detected in Ukraine on Tuesday but has

According to Russia based Kaspersky Labs more than 2,000

users have been attacked so far, but that number seems

When users switch their computers on, they're being asked to pay

a ransom of $300 in the digital currency Bitcoin to

Now, it appears that so far that more than $9,000

of payments have been made by 36 different users.

Some of the world's biggest companies have been hit including

advertising giant WPP, US pharmaceuticals giants Merck

and Russia's biggest oil company, Rosneft.

Also affected is the world's biggest shipping line,

It's ports in New York and New Jersey have been impacted

as well as Europe's largest harbour in Rotterdam.

With me is Greg Sim, Chief Executive of Glasswall Solutions,

Greg, hitting big companies. It seems enormous, but it is similar to

other attacks. Where does it rank in the sort of the order of hack

attacks? Well, it's a big attack. It is a global attack as we can see. Is

it surprising? Probably not. In the industry we see these things

happening more and more and they will continue happening more and

more. There is no doubt. You have major companies being hit by this.

Do they not have the kind of protection that they ought to have?

You find out, well, there is a mixture of things. First of all,

many large companies have got a legacy operating system so they need

to be updated and they don't update patches and the type of technologies

that are trying to protect them are not up to scratch. They are looking

for the viruses. Antivirus is a good example. When this hit yesterday our

intelligence team checked and there was only ten out of 61 antivirus

companies that had known it was an attack. If you put that into a

layman point of view. Even the antivirus companies didn't know it

was an attack? Correct. Remember they're having to find that virus

first of all and actually just a few months ago the BBC announced over

one million new variants of viruses a day. So if you're trying to find

them. So these organisations struggle found the ones that are

there, never mind the new ones. So businesses can be criticised for not

doing enough to protect themselves, but if you're saying lots of

antivirus software wouldn't have protected them from this attack?

Correct. Can you understand why maybe some businesses aren't doing

enough because they don't think they can protect themselves? Well, they

can do more and businesses have got to A, empower their security

partners more and they've got to embrace more innovation. There are

technologies there that work, that do fix phishing attacks and e-mail

attacks and documents that are weaponised and lots of different

things, but unfortunately, they're not empowering a lot, we see some

great companies who have done really, really well and take it

very, very seriously indeed because where does it end? When do the

lights go off type of thing? What's the mindset of the people who don't

do enough to protect themselves? Why aren't they? It ranges from heads in

the sand. It's not going to happen to us. Well, if we get hit, you

know, can we cover it up? Of course, even that now is getting very

dangerous because reputational damage. Some of the firms have been

quoted, you know, from a consumer point of view, well, I'm not going

to trust them with my money or whatever it is, you know. So it's

going to get a lot more interesting as we go forward. I imagine we will

be speaking to you again soon, Greg. Thank you.

Let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news:

The International Monetary Fund has cuts its growth forecasts for the US

economy due to uncertainty about President Trump's policies.

The IMF has cut this year's expectation from 2.3% to 2.1%

The IMF said high employment rates made expansion hard and urged the US

to maintain its commitment to free trade.

More than a quarter of the world's population is now using Facebook

every month according to the social platform's founder Mark Zuckerberg.

More than two billion people have now signed up to use it

since he created the company 13 years ago.

An ambitious plan to provide broadband links to every corner

of the globe by satellite has begun in France.

The aerospace giant Airbus and its partner, One Web,

have started the production of a mega-satellite constellation

$1.7 billion has already been raised to fund the network which will rely

This is a lovely one. A shop in Tyneside... That's in the north of

England. Yes. It used to be called Singhsburys, so it changed its way

to Morrisinghs. No, Morrisons are fine about it! He

says the colour scheme is different. That's his defence!

There's been yet more bad news for Toshiba.

The Japanese conglomerate says it hasn't been able to finalise a deal

to sell its memory chip business to a government backed consortium.

It needs to do that to raise cash after massive losses

And now it says it is suing one of its business partners

The money would help cover big losses at its US nuclear unit.

Simon, what more can you tell us about this? In the last couple of

hours Toshiba announced that it is suing Western Digital. It says that

Western has been trying to derail essentially it's plans to sell off

its memory chip business. Western Digital said it doesn't want the

business to go to the consortium that Toshiba has in mind, it would

be not be in its interests and Toshiba are keen to push the deal

through and today it has announced it will sue them with costs linked

to this deal not going through. You mention the huge amount of money

that it owes after the collapse of its nuclear business and that's why

it is so keen to push the deal through as soon as possible. Simon,

thank you for that. Let's see how the markets have been

getting on. Asian shares slumped

overnight following The delay to the US healthcare

reform vote is increasing traders concerns that President Trump

won't be able to push through all the tax reforms,

deregulation, and infrastructure spending that they had

hoped for and that many The European markets

all closed down yesterday. They have opened up and fallen again

this morning. They're down. The euro has rallied

after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi hinted

that the ECB could trim Joining us is Nandini Ramakrishnan,

Global Market Strategist at JP This is a really interesting story.

Draghi said it is no longer deflation, it is reflation. This is

a turning point? So inflation coming back up. Prices changing month after

month, year after year getting higher, means consumers want to

spend more, more important for Draghi's case is acknowledging the

growth in the eurozone. The political risk has subsided that we

started the year worried about. A lot of good things in Europe which

he has acknowledged. As we saw in the market yesterday with that

acknowledgement yields go up. Because we're seeing the end of a

long era when people are used to low interest rates and used to

quantitative easing, as things change, are people going to

struggle? The key reactions will be in the markets. So, institutions and

investors who hold bonds will feel the brunt of that change soon, but

we don't expect European interest rates to go much higher than they

are. The first thing the ECB will reduce the QE programme that affects

the bond markets more than interest rates. It is something that in a

longer term as we get out of the post crisis help from central banks

investors and consumers are going to have to be worried about. Perhaps

higher interest rates going forward. I wanted to ask you about tech

stocks. Over the last couple of months we have seen a sell off and

we have seen it again in the last 24 hours, haven't we? Yes, we have. The

tech space in the US has been hit in the past few weeks with big market

moves. When tech gets in the US, that's such a large part of the S

and P 500 index, more than 20% of it is tech. When there is a move there

it brings down the S and P 500. Some of the companies have high

valuations so they have really, really rallied in price in the past

few years so the small moves and news items that come out on specific

ones of those... You're talking about Google, aren't you? Yes, I am.

They got fined a couple of billion pounds, 2.4 billion euros, does that

affect everybody? It doesn't affect everybody necessarily. It's a risk

if you read this headline, as an investor you think that maybe this

can affect other companies that I have paid a lot for the that's the

big thing we tell our investors, don't have all your money in one

stock, you need to make sure you're diversified so one fine doesn't drag

the index down. We have got to talk about oil. Where are we now, $45,

are we stabilising a bit? We are stabilising a bit. We expected

higher towards the end because we thought Opec producers would cut

back. We would expect supply to generally be lower and demand to be

higher. We are seeing a bit of weakness in the oil price and we

expect that to be going forward, maybe around the $50 mark throughout

the course of this year, but that's lower than we initially expected. We

will see you at the end of the programme to go through the papers.

And in a global world - how important are national standards?

We'll be talking with the British Standards Institution

about keeping up with artificial intelligence, robots

You're with Business Live from BBC News.

Electronics retailer Dixons Carphone has reported a 4% rise

in like-for-like sales for the year to 29th April.

The company said that the market appears to be

"holding-up" for them despite uncertainty.

Theo Leggett has been looking through the figures.

A lot of retail stocks struggling at the moment, but car phone doesn't

seem to be one of them? This is reassuring results from Dixons car

phone, Jamie. It reached the ?500 million barrier for its pre-tax

profits for the first time. Like for like sales up 4% and profit margins

pretty stable. So all of that looks solid and given that there are fears

for the health of the British high street at the moment, that comes

across as reassuring and Dixons car phone shares are up this morning. It

is in some senses a mixed picture though because if you look at the

electricicals business, that's selling washing machines, computers,

gaming, all that side of the business, that's doing well, but the

mobile phones business, the old Carphone Warehouse part of the

business, that's looking as the company says a bit more challenging

and there are various reasons for that. One is that handset prices are

getting higher and that's eroding profit margins. There was the recall

of the Galaxy Note 7 and the Samsung model that had a tendency to burst

into flames last year. That had an impact on sales. There are other

problems as well. For example, an increasing number of consumers

getting sim-only contracts. There are competitive sim-only contracts

out there. That's competition. The pictures are is a positive one. It

is international business which it has been slimming down, but it has

operations in the Nordic countries and Greece, that's been doing well

and because of the weakness in the pound, sterling against euro,

revenues are worth more so that's been positive too. Thank you for a

comprehensive round-up. The biggest fall on the FTSE is this

company, because UK regulators will investigate investment platforms.

You may have your investment on a platform, companies take in money

which an investor wants to put in and it will decide where to put it,

what companies to invest it in. These will be investigated, and the

market does not like it at the moment.

Companies across the globe are reporting that they have been struck

The virus freezes the user's computer until an untraceable ransom

is paid in the digital currency bitcoin.

A quick look at how markets are faring.

And now let's get the inside track on the British

It was founded on the same day Queen Victoria died in 1901 to set

It's first task, to harmonize the size of tramway rails.

And from that simple task it has grown into publishing nearly

In the UK it is best known for its kite-mark quality standard.

But while it is primarily setting British standards,

it now has 80 offices in 30 countries and employs

Joining me is Howard Kerr, global chief Executive

of the British Standards Institution.

I'm not sure if we were quite accurate, does Britain make up the

most amount of your standards? Only 5% of our standards are purely

British, the international standards environment is made up of local,

national and regional standards. You go around the world setting

standards in different countries? We shape the standards with industry

and with regulators and academics and consumer groups to make sure

that best practices are available to use. We collaborate with other

countries and bodies to elevate those standards, leading to an -- to

a universal standard. That is the holy Grail. National standards which

address and national issues are still relevant, but increasingly

weak or international. One of the big issues facing everybody is the

oncoming Internet of things, driverless cars, your phone talking

to your house, you have been looking at standards for artificial

intelligence, how does that begin? Do somebody call you and say, we are

making driverless cars, let's set some ground rules? Who do you get to

come into the room? An important part of our role is to listen and

engage with markets. And looking to identify those future business

drivers, to enable the development of these new technologies. We are

actively working in these areas. Last year we published a new

standard on robot ethics. We all know that our world will be

increasingly influenced by the use of robots at home and at work, but

who owns them? Who is responsible for programming and operating them?

Who is accountable when things go wrong? That standard is a good

example of setting the Government's framework. It enables them to

innovate and do research and of elements and accelerate the adoption

of new products. You are a vital part of the free market, and trade.

Do you get involved in trade deals? For instance, when Canada does a

deal with the EU, a lot of that is to do with standards for exporting.

You get involved? Very much so. You wear that standards are shaped, in a

collaborative, consensus approach, that is prescribed by WTO rules. But

it is consensus, you do not impose it? We will not publish it if we do

not get a consensus. There has to be a consensus of all of the

stakeholders of. We ensure fair play and that the consensus is genuine so

that when the sun that is published it have the widest possible

adoption. We are not a regulator, standards are voluntary, but we work

closely with regulators. In areas like medical devices or food, it is

important that standards support the regulatory regime. It is a bore that

we have these standards, you mentioned it earlier, plugs, we did

not reach a universal standard, and actually you can see if you are

boiled down to other items, it would be so much more useful for people if

we had one plug that we used around the world.

Electrical plugs, not bad plugs! It is a good example of where the

absence of standards creates a significant inconvenience and cost

and frustration. At the other end, took a good outside the security,

there is an international standard shaped by others for information

security. It is now universally adopted as the best practice in IT

security governance, the fastest-growing standard in the

world, and it is addressing a very real need. Businesses are trying to

secure their own resilience. There must be resistance, if companies

develop different standards independently and want their own

standard to go forward, they will make money out of it if it is, that

must be quite tense, if you are trying to get to people to say, we

are not going to use yours, we will use yours? Yes, but in a world of

complexes by chains, no organisation operates in isolation, supply chains

rely on business partners to be able to share... There must be heated

debate. There is healthy exchange, urges good, because a committee

which is shaping a standard will spend a long time debating those key

points. I would agree it is powerful, because everybody has

bought into the idea. In a moment we'll take a look

through the business pages. But first, here's a quick reminder

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find us on Facebook. Business Live on TV and online,

whenever you need to know. What other business

stories has the media been Joining us again is

Nandini Ramakrishnan, global market strategist at JP

Morgan Asset Management. We will start with the story of tax

reform in India will stop it sounds really boring, but it is really

important. You said, we will do tax reform in

India, remember when they replaced the banknotes and how chaotic that

was? This could go the same way. 29 different states all have different

tax policies on different goods and services, inputs and outputs are

taxed at different rates, to conglomerate or streamline some of

this could be really big for the long-term growth prospects. Some

people say it could add more .5% of GDP to stop it is the largest

growing country, so it is a huge thing. It is the largest single

market. It has not been a single market in the past, there are

differences within the country, so moving towards this single market,

where trade is more easily done, this can be done and not easily, it

is huge. A lot of it is going online, part of this move after

taking the economy away from a cash society towards a cashless society.

We will see huge changes. Making things more electronic helps with

cutting down corruption, it makes things more traceable, it can be

quicker, but how -- but it will have some near-term struggles. It takes

time to get everyone on the same system and make sure these

intricacies work. Let's move on, cyber attacks, long-lasting business

impact, according to Lloyds of London. It is only just think one,

it is a slow burning issue, they are now going to be part of every

company's thought process. It says it is a large industry in ensuring

these things, 2.5 billion, so as you were saying, with every challenge

there is also opportunity for the market. One person's night there is

another person's dream. We have heard about the

consequences, companies not able to do business, but this is the kind of

wider look, you will get this, there is more for businesses to consider.

At a time where technology makes business easier, there is the flip

side and the challenge, and people like Lloyds are trying to work in

this market as well. The UK heading towards another credit crisis, this

is from Mark Carney yesterday, to do with consumer debt. After 2008 banks

and the entire economic idea was to get credit moving, we saw that from

the Bank of England, but now, as consumers have a lot of debt, can

they start narrowing the gap, paying off the debt? Id link back to what

we were talking about earlier, the change from deflation to reflation,

and some people will be caught out. If you can not afford the higher

interest rate, yes, you will have to default or not pay those loans, and

there are consequences, but that is why everybody was very cautious

post-crisis, thinking more about, is this consumer or company healthy

enough to lend to? We hope that will go forward.

There will be more business news throughout the day on the BBC Live