Should You Build or Buy Crisis Comms Infrastructure?

When your primary systems fail, your communication channels often fail with them. You're facing a decision that will determine whether stakeholders get accurate information during your next major outage or whether they fill the vacuum with speculation.

The question isn't whether you need crisis communication capability during IT and OT disruptions. Guidance from CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and international partners makes it clear that organizations must plan for clear, timely messaging when systems go dark. The real decision is how you'll deliver that capability: build your own infrastructure, purchase a managed service, or adopt a hybrid approach.

The Decision You're Facing

You need backup communication methods that function when your primary telecommunications may be disrupted or unreliable. This isn't about routine status updates through your corporate email. It's about reaching affected stakeholders when the systems they depend on have failed, whether from cyber threats, equipment failure, human error, or natural hazards.

Your choice affects three operational outcomes: how quickly you can communicate during cascading failures across interconnected systems, how well you maintain transparency while protecting operational security, and whether your messaging aligns with legal requirements and law enforcement coordination needs.

Key Factors That Affect Your Choice

Regulatory obligations drive your baseline requirements. If you're critical infrastructure under CISA's CI Fortify initiative scope, you must demonstrate that your crisis communications plans integrate backup methods and support isolation or recovery of vital OT systems. Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings may require disclosure of material incidents and your preparedness posture.

Your operational environment determines technical constraints. Organizations with geographically distributed OT environments face different challenges than centralized IT operations. If an outage at your facility could cascade to interconnected systems at other organizations, you need communication channels that reach beyond your immediate stakeholders.

Your internal capability matters. Do you have staff who can maintain backup communication infrastructure 24/7? Can your team execute crisis messaging that balances transparency with operational security during active containment efforts? Your honest assessment here determines feasibility.

Path A: Build Your Own Infrastructure

Choose this path when you operate critical infrastructure with unique operational security requirements that commercial providers can't meet.

You'll need dedicated backup telecommunications that don't rely on your primary network. This means separate internet circuits, satellite links, or radio systems that your crisis team can access even when corporate systems are isolated as a defensive strategy. You'll maintain your own contact databases, message templates, and distribution protocols.

When this makes sense:

• Your organization faces regulatory requirements for demonstrable control over crisis communications.
• You handle classified information or operate in sectors where third-party access creates unacceptable risk.
• You have in-house telecommunications expertise and 24/7 staffing.
• Your crisis communication needs are tightly coupled with operational decisions that external providers can't anticipate.

What you're committing to:

• Capital investment in redundant infrastructure and regular testing.
• Ongoing maintenance of contact databases and communication protocols.
• Training programs so your crisis team can execute under pressure.
• Documentation that demonstrates your backup methods work when primary systems fail.

This path gives you complete control over messaging timing and content. You can align communication with law enforcement coordination without external dependencies, but you own the entire reliability burden.

Path B: Purchase Managed Service

Choose this path when you need guaranteed availability without building internal telecommunications expertise.

Managed crisis communication providers operate their own infrastructure separate from your corporate systems. They maintain contact databases, provide multiple delivery channels (SMS, voice, email through independent networks), and often include templates aligned with regulatory disclosure requirements.

When this makes sense:

• You lack internal telecommunications expertise or 24/7 crisis response staffing.
• Your primary risk is speed and reliability of notification, not message customization.
• You need to demonstrate backup communication capability to auditors without capital investment.
• Your crisis scenarios are relatively standard (outages, evacuations, service disruptions).

What you're evaluating in providers:

• Whether their infrastructure is truly independent from systems that might fail during your crisis.
• How they handle sensitive operational information in their databases.
• Whether their message templates align with your legal requirements and operational security needs.
• What their actual availability metrics are during major regional disruptions.

This path trades control for reliability. You depend on the provider's infrastructure, but you don't maintain it. Make sure your contract addresses how they'll support you during incidents affecting multiple clients simultaneously.

Path C: Hybrid Approach

Choose this path when you need both control over sensitive messaging and guaranteed delivery infrastructure.

You maintain your own crisis communication protocols and decision authority but use commercial infrastructure for actual message delivery. You might build your own contact management and message approval workflow while contracting for redundant telecommunications and multi-channel distribution.

When this makes sense:

• You need to customize messaging for complex operational scenarios.
• You want control over what gets communicated and when, but you don't want to maintain telecommunications infrastructure.
• Your crisis scenarios require coordination with law enforcement or regulatory agencies before public communication.
• You operate in multiple jurisdictions with different disclosure requirements.

What you're building:

• Internal protocols for message development and approval that integrate with external delivery systems.
• Contact database management that you control but can push to provider systems.
• Testing procedures that verify both your internal processes and the provider's delivery capability.
• Contractual frameworks that define handoff points and maintain your operational security.

This path requires clear interface definitions. You need documented procedures for how your team hands off approved messages to the delivery infrastructure and how you verify delivery during an actual crisis.

Summary Matrix

Factor	Build	Buy	Hybrid
Control over messaging	Complete	Limited to templates	High
Infrastructure responsibility	Full ownership	Provider-managed	Shared
Capital investment	High	Low	Medium
Operational security	You control access	Depends on provider	Negotiated boundaries
Regulatory demonstration	Direct evidence	Provider attestation	Combined approach
Staffing requirement	24/7 internal	Minimal	Protocol management
Speed to implement	12-18 months	30-90 days	3-6 months

Your choice should align with how you've answered a simpler question: During your next major outage, who needs to approve the message before stakeholders receive it? If that answer is "our crisis team, after consulting legal and operations," you need Path A or C. If it's "whoever can get accurate information out fastest," Path B works.

The guidance from CISA and the FBI emphasizes clarity, accountability, and transparency as core principles. Whichever path you choose, test it under conditions that simulate actual telecommunications disruption. A crisis communication plan that depends on systems likely to fail during your crisis isn't a plan at all.