Your network is the bedrock everything depends on. Without it, most work would cease to function, which is why we tend to view the network as a switch. When it’s on, it works and doesn’t need our attention – when it’s off: action stations.
Such a black and white view can be a little outdated, though. Reliability is still a key consideration, but today, such a simplistic view can introduce critical issues around security and compliance – particularly for businesses in regulated industries.
Why is your network now such a source of risk, what does this mean in practice, and what can you do to guard against the dangers?
We sat down with our network experts to unpick the challenges and explore the solutions.
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Your network isn’t just plumbing – it’s a dimension that attracts risk
In the past, your company’s network was based on site. Inflexible, but controllable. Isolated from third parties and designed from the ground up to hum along in the background.
Modern IT estates are entirely different. For well over a decade, they’ve become distributed and virtualised – across an array of clouds, devices and software as a service platforms, all accessed by many more remote users and third parties than on-premises ever was.
Despite this complete step-change in functionality though, we tend to still see our networks as utilities: something you only notice when it breaks.
This isn’t just old-fashioned – it’s risky. In distributed environments, the network is now the pathway layer that determines access, exposure, and reliability. If those pathways aren’t designed and governed consistently, risk creeps in quietly: blind spots, misconfigurations, and inconsistent controls.
Thankfully, there are plenty of solutions available. If a network is designed with control, visibility and resilience in mind, it can securely support the services that run on it. Exposure to risks lessens, protecting your operations and ensuring regulatory compliance.
Assurance requires evidence that’s gained or lost through the network
Network-as-a-utility thinking can also cause big problems in terms of assurance. If you operate in a regulated field, you need to clearly demonstrate control over your IT – claims won’t cut it.
Frustratingly though, regulatory proof can be hard to come by. Gaining visibility over your organisation’s entire network estate is easier said than done. There’s a lot to keep track of, including traffic pathways, access routes and service dependencies. And once all that is tracked, how can you go about making tangible sense of the mountain of data generated?
We need to look at your network through a modern lens. Typically, it’s one of the only IT layers that connects your users, apps, data, clouds and websites. That makes it central to assurance: you can’t confidently prove access is controlled, data is protected in transit, or services are resilient if you can’t observe and evidence what’s happening across it.
The solution is an assurance-ready network. Built to include end-to-end monitoring, meaningful reporting, consistent policy enforcement, and audit-friendly records that support both smooth operations and rigid compliance needs. That way, you can show your controls are working, as opposed to simply believing – or hoping – they are.
Marc Roberts, our Director of Products and Solutions – Connectivity, notes that:
Networks are no longer just connectivity platforms – they are strategic business assets that directly support operational resilience, security, and regulatory compliance. In regulated industries especially, the network forms the backbone of critical services and access to sensitive data.
Most network failures aren’t caused by big outages – they’re caused by complexity
When we think of why network failures happen, most of us think lights out: an unplugged cable, mass hack, or melting server. In our experience though, these sorts of catastrophic causes are rare. Networks don’t tend to fail with a bang – they quietly fall apart at the seams.
As many organisations grow and mature, they become hybrid environments. Hybrids can be hugely beneficial in terms of functionality and capabilities, but when implemented with a lack of strategy, they can become a mess of different approaches and suppliers. Configurations differ between services, so IT introduces exceptions, then exceptions to exceptions.
The result is a patchwork of services with weak seams connecting them. Cloud-to-site connections, remote access routes, third-party links, and handoffs between identity and access; all this threadbare connectivity makes troubleshooting arduous. And the fragility of the ecosystem means even the best support staff are one click away from causing a crash.
All this complexity creates blind spots and makes change risky – exactly the opposite of what a regulated organisation needs.
Your network can be shored up though. Even the messiest patchwork can be repaired with standardised patterns, clearer ownership across teams and suppliers, and a simpler operational model. Perfection isn’t the goal – it’s a network you can operate consistently, change safely, and recover quickly.
Performance and security are linked – weak experience drives risky workarounds.
We expect our networks to perform. As the technology underpinning our IT advances, so should the speed and reliability. Often, however, we see the opposite.
As IT turns patchwork, users can begin experiencing greater latency and unreliable access – especially when it comes to cloud and SaaS. This isn’t just inconvenient for staff. Anxious to get on with the task at hand, they escalate their concerns, piling pressure on IT teams. Control over the situation fails and IT responds with quick fixes, unsanctioned tools, and other insecure practices like bypasses, inconsistent routes and shadow IT.
All of these negatives combine to create avoidable security and compliance risks based on poor user experience. Your network should encourage users to do the right thing rather than the fast thing. Performance should be perceived as an aspect of assurance: prioritise critical traffic, build resilient routes, and improve observability so issues are resolved before they turn costly.
Given how critical this is, Mark recommends this work comes from above:
As cyber threats continue to evolve in sophistication and scale, organisations must treat network availability, security, and governance as board-level priorities. Robust security controls, aligned compliance measures, and resilient connectivity architectures are now fundamental requirements, not optional enhancements.
Operational resilience is no longer optional – the network holds the key
Practically every business in a regulated sector is reliant on IT. Outages or lacklustre performance aren’t just the IT team’s problem: they can trigger serious operational, financial, and reputational consequences. The solution is resilience, but many of these efforts simply focus on apps and infrastructure, all while assuming the network will keep working silently in the background.
Assumptions can be ill-placed. Even the most perfectly designed services can still fail in practice if the network they sit on can’t reliably deliver. That’s because your network sits at the core of countless dependencies – if it lacks redundancy, visibility, or tested response processes, it becomes the weak link.
To make assumptions ironclad, we need to engineer and operate the network for resilience: design for failure, monitor proactively, test response, and ensure recovery processes are clear and measurable. In doing so, you’ll support continuity and reduce the likelihood that a silent network incident becomes a costly business incident.
Marks adds:
Operational resilience depends on the network as much as applications. Working with a specialist provider that understands the complexities of regulated environments can help simplify compliance, strengthen security posture, and maintain trusted access to critical infrastructure.
Assess, achieve and maintain compliance with a partner that understands the risks
For over 29 years we’ve managed critical networks – including key public sector infrastructure. That’s why they understand the challenges regulated organisations face and how poorly optimised networks can undermine even the smartest, most modern estates.
Working closely to understand the specifics of your systems, we’ll create a secure, purposefully built solution that’s designed to grow with your business and free up your IT experts to deliver value. All backed by dedicated, fully-accredited support, available 24/7/365.
Understand, control and protect your network – learn more about our managed network services or talk to one of our specialists today.
