Map your critical vendors, demand real evidence like SOC 2, and review with a skeptical eye. Continuous monitoring keeps your defenses tight and your partners honest—because your security is only as strong as theirs.
Recent research suggests that upwards of 30% of organizational software budgets is wasted with un—or under—used licensing. The way to fix that? A licensing review.
Managing AI agent lifecycles—creation, access and decommissioning—is essential to prevent “ghost” identities. Cisco is helping organizations close that gap with modern IAM innovations.
HBS is now an Elite Partner for Video Security and Access Control, delivering advanced Avigilon solutions that make security simpler, smarter and stronger.
Cloud Giants Stumble: AWS & Azure Hit by Major Outages
Two weeks ago, Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a widespread outage triggered by a rare software bug and DNS failure in its US-East region, bringing down hundreds of websites, gaming platforms, banking services and more.
And then last week, Microsoft’s Azure cloud experienced a global disruption caused by a configuration error in its Azure Front Door network, impacting services like Microsoft 365, Office 365 and other major enterprise applications.
These incidents serve to remind all of us: even the most established cloud providers can have hiccups, and your organization’s risk doesn’t stop at your firewall—it extends into every vendor and cloud service you rely on.
And that leads us into this week's....
Tech Tip
Protecting Your Organization When Major Outages Do Occur
Here’s how to stay resilient when AWS, Azure, or any critical service goes dark:
Diversify critical workloads. Don’t rely on a single provider for all essential systems. Hybrid and multi-cloud environments spread risk.
Build redundancy into your design. Keep local backups of key data, and use failover options for applications that can’t afford downtime.
Document your dependency chain. Know which systems connect to which cloud services so you can respond quickly when something breaks upstream.
Monitor your vendors. Subscribe to cloud provider status alerts and integrate outage notifications into your incident response plan.
Test your continuity plan. Regular tabletop exercises ensure your team knows who to contact, what to prioritize and how to keep operations moving.
Review SLAs and recovery commitments. Understand your provider’s obligations and verify they align with your business requirements.
We had an incredible few days at Lambeau Field for Innovate.HBS 2025. We brought together great people, had many meaningful discussions and shared moments of learning and innovation.
We’re grateful to everyone—speakers, presenters, clients, partners, and HBS teammates who helped make it happen.
Join HBS at the third annual Secure Illinois Conference on December 3 at the College of DuPage. Spend the day connecting with peers and industry experts while exploring the latest in cybersecurity, physical security and IT risk management.
.png?upscale=true&width=420&upscale=true&name=MSI_VSA_Channel-Partner-Logo_Elite_Avigilon-Specialist_png%20(1).png){kind=logo}
