Lessons Learned in Communication Resilience

As many continue to experience the impact of the global CrowdStrike outage, such compelling events underscore a vital truth for enterprises: even with significant investments in continuity planning and infrastructure, no communication solution is immune to unexpected failures. Whether it’s an internet outage, a severed cable, or a data center affected by severe weather, these disruptions can occur despite our best efforts.

At Mitel, we can report that none of our customers faced outages during the CrowdStrike incident. This is a testament to our unwavering commitment to communication resilience, a principle we embraced long before the outage highlighted its importance. The vulnerabilities exposed by such events have only reinforced our dedication to building robust, resilient communication systems.

The Importance of Communication Resilience

Communication resilience is especially vital in mission-critical sectors where failures can have devastating consequences. The impact on various industries can be difficult to rebound from quickly and successfully:

Hospitality and Entertainment

Consider airports that experience service disruptions and challenges communicating with customers during downtime. Handling communication surge events in the aftermath adds to their burden.

Healthcare and Emergency Services

Some providers will revert to pen and paper when access to electronic health records and other critical systems is lost. This shift highlights the vital need for uninterrupted communication channels in high-stakes environments.

Public Sector Operations

During CrowdStrike, states like Alaska and New Hampshire experienced significant disruptions in emergency services. 911 systems went offline, affecting the public’s ability to get timely help.

The economic impact of outages is staggering. Insurer Parametrix predicts that the CrowdStike event alone could cost Fortune 500 companies over $5 billion in direct losses.

Mitel’s Approach to Communication Resilience

These are known challenges for any digitally driven organization. Mitel’s approach prevents or mitigates failures, outages, and breaches through a comprehensive and multi-faceted strategy:

1. Embracing Hybrid Infrastructure

We believe hybrid infrastructure is essential for ensuring resilience:

• Cost-Effective Support: Hybrid models accommodate diverse work styles and offer hands-on control over the environment.
• Built-in Redundancies: Our solutions, with failover capabilities and geo-separated deployments, are designed to minimize the risk of communication downtime.

2. Security as a Core Principle

Security is not an afterthought in our solutions; it’s integrated from the ground up:

• Vulnerability Intelligence and Secure Application Development: We embed best practices into our processes to ensure robust security.
• Advanced Encryption: Our products adhere to the latest signaling and media encryption security standards, providing end-to-end protection.
• Proven Expertise: With years of experience securing communications in multi-vendor environments, our solutions are well-tested and reliable.
• Software Assurance (SWA): This feature ensures your Mitel solutions remain up-to-date and protected.

3. Compliance and Partnerships

We take pride in our compliance with a wide range of standards:

• Certifications: Our services and solutions support rigorous standards, including DoD JITC, HIPAA, Dodd-Frank Act, MiFID II, DORA, MaRisk, FedRAMP, and ISO27001.
• Security Partnerships: We collaborate with leading security firms, such as McAfee, Trend Micro, Check Point, Fortinet, Imprivata, TippingPoint, and IronPort, to provide comprehensive coverage.
• Multi-Vendor Expertise: Our experience with multi-vendor environments helps map end-to-end security for your communication infrastructure.

Looking Ahead

Mitel’s engagement with security standard organizations like the Cloud Security Alliance and CIS Benchmark and adherence to IETF RFC recommendations (including TLS 1.3) underscores our commitment to continuous improvement in security and resilience.

While no system can be entirely impervious to failure, our proactive measures in hybrid infrastructure, embedded security, and rigorous compliance frameworks ensure that we are prepared to meet and overcome the challenges of modern communication disruptions.

For those navigating the complex landscape of communication resilience, rest assured that Mitel stands ready to support you with solutions designed to keep your operations secure and your communications uninterrupted.

Contact us to learn more about how Mitel helps mitigate digital threats and keeps organizations communicating >