Many organizations have robust programs in place to make sure that systems at the end of their life or warranty are decommissioned and that patching and vulnerability management programs are in place and active. But for as many that do have those programs in place there are just as many – if not more – that are not retiring devices and staying up to date with the latest system patches.

This not only puts that organization at risk but it can lead to cyberattacks on a global scale, targeting aging network infrastructure, as evidenced by recent advisories from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and the U.S.’s  Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as well as reports of state-sponsored activity. 

To combat this industry leaders across networking, service providers and cybersecurity announced the launch of the Network Resilience Coalition, an alliance focused on bringing together technology providers, security experts, and network operators proposing real-world solutions to dramatically improve the security of data and networks that support our global economic and national security. 

Technology companies must find ways to address the continued challenge of updating software and hardware and patching regularly, while also encouraging organizations to have better visibility into their networks to better mitigate cyber risks. The Network Resilience Coalition was formed to help address these issues in an open and collaborative way and to help improve network hardware and software resilience on a global scale. By bringing together infrastructure vendors and major network operators who are experienced in deploying patches in a timely manner, the coalition aims to address network hardware and software resilience challenges and inform good policy.

Founding members of the new coalition consist of leaders who have been addressing this problem at its roots, including, AT&T Inc., Broadcom, BT Group, Cisco Systems Inc., Fortinet, Intel Corp., Juniper Networks, Lumen Technologies Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Verizon, and VMware. 

Coalition members will work together on a report that investigates the crux of these issues and produce clear, actionable recommendations for improving network security, for technology providers, technology users, and those creating or regulating security policy.