In this RIFF, we connect recent headlines to the realities of communicating during a crisis.

Headline 1: Verizon and Microsoft 365/Outlook outages
When your primary tools go dark, approvals stall, and coordination breaks down.

Headline 2: Iran’s Starlink “kill switch” (with the Russia angle)
Satellite isn’t a guaranteed “Plan B.” Geopolitics can shut it down.

Headline 3: Identity verification and deepfakes
With synthetic personas rising, you must be able to trust who’s in the room when you pivot out-of-band.

We map these stories across three layers—access, membership, and enterprise software—and weave in recent signals like voice-phishing SSO/MFA bypasses, Signal usage scrutiny, and BitLocker key reporting. They show how surveillance, misrouting, or the wrong person in the room can turn small mistakes into major incidents.

We close with three questions every team should answer now:

1. What will you use to coordinate when your normal systems fail?
2. What is your fallback connectivity vulnerable to?
3. How will you verify identities out-of-band without breaking privilege or retention?