Resilient connectivity is the foundation of business security, says Connectus CEO

While businesses have been hardening their perimeters against intrusion many still run on a single broadband circuit, a single provider and a single cloud – so the thing most likely to take them offline isn’t a hacker, it’s a fault.

Connectus  CEO Roy Shelton says resilient connectivity – diverse circuits, automatic failover, all-IP voice with backup, and tested continuity plans – is the layer that makes every other security investment work.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) this week warned that the country is heading into 2027 at a watershed moment, as many organisations are increasingly reliant on suppliers and service providers and that supply-chain weaknesses expose them to risks beyond their control.

Its latest annual report revealed that its early warning service warned 8,500 organisations of a potential compromise in the 12 months to the end of August, with 80 cases judged to be “nationally significant”.

Mr Shelton said October’s Google Cloud London outage is a case in point. “Among those affected were Revolut, Lloyds, Halifax, HSBC, Royal Mail, plus NHS England and Rightmove, with full service restored around midday.

“HM Courts and Tribunals Service also reported problems with the video platform used for remote hearings. The Prime Minister’s office confirmed it was in contact with Google Cloud, which shows how seriously it was taken.

“Crucially, the cause was power, not malice: nothing in a security budget would have prevented it; only architectural resilience would have.”

Here are some key areas to check to ensure your business can remain resilient:

Two circuits, two carriers, two routes – a backup line from the same provider over the same duct isn’t redundancy – ask for genuinely diverse paths: different carriers and, ideally, physically separate entry points to the building.

Failover that’s automatic and tested – a backup nobody has switched to in 18 months is a guess. The router should cut over without a human touching it, in seconds, and the switchover should be tested quarterly.

Know your single points of failure – map every dependency: ISP, DNS provider, cloud region, SaaS tools, payment gateway, VoIP platform. If any one of them fails, what stops working?

Don’t put all your cloud in one region – multi-zone or multi-region for anything customer-facing.

Get off the PSTN now – audit hidden lines. With under 100 days to the switch-off, there are 300,000 business lines still on copper.

Voice that survives a broadband fault – make sure numbers can be re-routed to mobiles automatically, and that the backup circuit is sized to carry voice.

Mr Shelton commented: “If your business would notice an outage before your IT team did, you don’t have resilience – you have luck. Now is the time to check your dependencies, test your failover and make sure one fault can never take everything with it.”

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