Episode description

Natural disasters have been hitting the United States hard in 2024, and programs designed to help ensure telecommunications resiliency have been working well in the background to keep people connected and facilitate response. In this episode of Advancing Cyber, host Cristin Flynn Goodwin, joined by telecommunications policy expert Kathryn Condello and telecommunications and cybersecurity veteran Marcus Sachs, addresses a critical problem: what happens when cloud services are taken offline at such a scale that customers and sectors compete to decide who gets restored first? As cloud infrastructure increasingly underpins vital sectors—finance, healthcare, utilities, and government—the question isn’t whether disruptions will happen but how devastating the impacts will be when they do.

The discussion dives into the structural and regulatory vulnerabilities in current cloud frameworks that sit at the intersection of cybersecurity and telecommunications, evaluating whether an approach like the telecom sector’s Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) regime can be adapted for rapid cloud restoration in times of crisis. As data centers carry multiple tenants with differing priorities, the panel explores the impact of the lack of regulation on cloud services in times of crisis, in the US and internationally.

This episode challenges cybersecurity policy and tech leaders to reassess how regulation, prioritization, and strategic partnerships must evolve as we recognize the cloud’s role in national security, emergency response, and national resilience.