The Royal Air Force’s new No. III Space Effects Squadron underscores that principle. Established to counter hostile threats to UK satellites, it reflects modern defense’s growing reliance on space-based capabilities, from communications and navigation to intelligence gathering and missile warning.
Securing those capabilities means enabling forces on land, at sea and in the air to keep operating when the systems they rely on come under threat.
The same principle applies across the UK’s defense sector and critical national infrastructure (CNI). Preventing cyber-attacks is essential. But resilience also means keeping vital services running when those defenses are breached.
Through my service in the British Army and my current role leading Vodafone Business Security Enhanced (VBSE), I have seen a common challenge: sustaining operations in contested environments, where a single failure can spread across interconnected systems and cause wider disruption.
As a specialized division within Vodafone Business UK, we help address that challenge by providing high-security cyber, mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to the UK government, defense forces, emergency services and CNI organizations.
Look at Your Business Through an Attacker’s Eyes
Space-based capabilities underpin communications, navigation, timing and situational awareness. Disruption can affect multiple military functions at once, exposing their shared dependencies.
Businesses face similar risks when communications, cloud platforms, identity systems or critical suppliers fail, disrupting services and supply chains, with wider consequences for public safety and national security.
Patching, security tools and monitoring are essential, but do not guarantee that operations will continue. Organizations must also think like an attacker: identify critical dependencies, assess where disruption could spread and prioritize the services that must stay operational. Connectivity and security must be considered together, not in isolation.
Cyber investment and resilience planning should be driven by critical communications, essential systems and unacceptable third-party risks – not technology choices made in isolation.
Connectivity is a Strategic Security Consideration
As defense and critical infrastructure become more interconnected, connectivity must be central to resilience – not simply a utility. Fixed and mobile networks, satellites, cloud and operational technology form a shared ecosystem, where weaknesses can compromise services across layers.
Fragmented teams, suppliers and platforms can create blind spots and blur accountability. Bringing connectivity, cybersecurity and operational continuity together helps organizations pinpoint their greatest vulnerabilities and coordinate responses across organizational boundaries.
No organization can eliminate systemic risk alone. But trusted partnerships, clear responsibilities and security built around the systems and services that operations depend on can strengthen resilience.
Design for Disruption, Not Just Prevention
The RAF’s focus on space reminds us that operating environments cannot be assumed to remain uncontested. Cybersecurity needs the same mindset: attackers can exploit suppliers, compromise credentials or disrupt critical services without bringing down an entire network. The operational consequences often cause the greatest damage.
Organizations must plan for preventive controls to fail by mapping dependencies, maintaining viable alternatives for essential services, segmenting systems and rehearsing realistic recovery. Redundancy alone is not resilience – backups sharing the primary system’s vulnerabilities or dependencies may fail alongside it.
Leaders must test essential operations against provider outages, disrupted communications and lost system access. Exercises must challenge assumptions about alternatives, recovery times and decision priorities, not simply confirm a plan exists. Resilience is operational, not just technical.
Make Resilience a Leadership Priority
Technology provides protection and visibility, but people, processes and decisions determine resilience. Thinking like an attacker is a leadership responsibility. Senior leaders must understand disruption’s impact, accept that risk cannot be eliminated and invest in continuity and recovery.
Government, defense organizations, telecommunications providers, technology partners and security specialists must share relevant intelligence, coordinate responses and rehearse together. These partnerships are vital for national infrastructure, where each organization increasingly depends on others’ security and availability.
Boards must look beyond their organization and ask: where would an attacker disrupt our most important services, and could we keep them running if it happened tomorrow?
That question puts security, connectivity, business continuity and recovery at the heart of a single strategic discussion.
The Mission Must Continue
The RAF’s new space squadron provides a timely reminder that the character of modern defense is changing. The lesson for business is not to replicate military structures, but to adopt the same mission-focused approach.
That means understanding critical dependencies, securing the connectivity that enables operations, preparing for disruption and working across organizational boundaries to reduce systemic risk.
In an increasingly contested digital world, resilience is not a promise that nothing will go wrong. It is the ability to anticipate disruption, contain its impact and recover without losing sight of what matters most.
Ultimately, the objective is the same in defence and business: protect the mission, maintain essential services and ensure that when disruption comes, the organization is ready to respond.
Image credit: George Tsitouras photos / Shutterstock.com