When Networks Fail: Lessons from Recent Outages on Building True Digital Resilience

Network outages used to be contained problems—a cell tower lost power, customers in that area lost service, and technicians restored connectivity within hours. The digital environment has since changed dramatically, with failures now spreading quickly across interconnected systems that society depends on. The root cause lies in digital transformation itself. Organizations have gained tremendous capabilities through cloud services, managed providers, and interconnected networks, but they’ve also created new vulnerabilities. A single software update can now ripple through thousands of companies. A power outage in one region can disable mobile networks across multiple countries. Supply chain dependencies stretch across continents, making it nearly impossible for any single organization to control all the factors that affect their service reliability. Network resilience has shifted from an operational concern to a strategic necessity, as its absence poses systemic risks to entire economies. Recent major outages reveal the true nature of network vulnerabilities.