The UK’s Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) continues to champion a forward-thinking approach to regulation, emphasizing collaboration and cross-sector coherence. As we highlighted in our previous post, "UK Leadership in Pro-Growth Regulation", the DRCF’s model, uniting financial, communications, data, and competition regulators, is pivotal in an era where digital services are deeply interconnected and operational resilience is paramount. 

Our engagement with the DRCF, culminating in the case study "Managing the Impact of Software Defects on Resilience," underscored a critical reality: non-security third-party software flaws pose universal risks that transcend industry boundaries. This foundational, cross-sector work by the DRCF provides a vital framework. Still, the practical application of these insights demands a more granular, industry-specific focus. 

Following the release of our first sector-specific whitepaper, Financial Services in the Crosshairs, we’re now turning our attention to another cornerstone of the digital economy: the telecommunications sector. The stability and reliability of telco networks are not just business objectives; they are societal necessities, underpinning everything from financial markets to healthcare systems. 

That’s why we are pleased to announce the publication of our latest whitepaper: Telecommunications in the Crosshairs: The Regulatory Push for Network & IT Operational Resilience.

This document translates the DRCF’s cross-sector guidance and the broader global regulatory trends into actionable strategies specifically for telecommunications operators, carriers, and service providers. As connectivity becomes ever more reliant on a complex ecosystem of third-party technology, the potential for cascading failures triggered by software defects in vendor equipment grows daily. 

This whitepaper explores the escalating regulatory demands on telcos to manage non-security third-party software risks as an integral component of their operational resilience frameworks. It examines: 

• The Global Regulatory Landscape: How international mandates like the EU’s NIS 2 Directive and EECC Article 40, the UK’s Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021, the US FCC’s NORS, and initiatives in Canada and the Asia-Pacific region are converging on the need to address software-induced operational IT risks. 

• Beyond Traditional Resilience: Why conventional hardware-centric resilience models are insufficient to address the latent firmware flaws or orchestration-layer defects in vendor software, which now trigger most large-scale outages. 

• The Interconnected Ecosystem: The unique challenges telcos face due to interdependencies—roaming agreements, MVNO arrangements, shared infrastructure—where a single vendor flaw can ripple across multiple operators and geographies. 

• Strategic Advantage Through Resilience: How proactive management of third-party software defects can lead to increased availability, enhanced subscriber trust, and long-term cost efficiencies. 

• Actionable Mitigation Strategies: Concrete steps telcos can take, including comprehensive visibility into third-party defects, continuous vendor risk assessment, and automated incident response workflows. 

The core message from regulators globally, and echoed by the DRCF’s work, is clear: ensuring the stability and reliability of critical third-party software is no longer a secondary concern but a primary operational imperative. For telecommunications providers, whose services form the bedrock of our digital society, the stakes could not be higher. 

As Ofcom, a key member of the DRCF, stipulates, telcos must take appropriate measures to prevent or minimize anything that compromises network availability, performance, or functionality—a definition that explicitly includes non-security software defects. 

The challenges posed by third-party software defects are not confined to financial services or telecommunications. They impact a wide array of industries reliant on complex digital supply chains. We will continue to release whitepapers exploring these issues for other key sectors. 

If you are grappling with how to translate evolving regulatory expectations for operational resilience into concrete action within your industry, we want to hear from you. 

Contact us for a discussion on how BugZero can help your organization navigate these challenges https://www.findbugzero.com/.