Two telecom hits, same lesson: our infrastructure is still too easy to break

What happened at Colt
Colt Technology Services was hit by a cyberattack that knocked out multiple customer-facing systems for days, including hosting and porting, the Colt Online portal, and its Voice API platform. A group calling itself WarLock claimed the attack and is allegedly offering around a million internal documents for sale, with reports of a $200,000 price tag. Service disruption began around August 12 and recovery is ongoing. Some reporting points to a possible SharePoint-related entry vector, which—if confirmed—would fit a pattern of exploitation against internet-exposed collaboration stacks.What happened at Orange
Orange detected unauthorized access to one of its information systems on July 25. In response, it isolated affected services with Orange Cyberdefense, causing disruptions to some management platforms and a small set of consumer services, primarily in France. Orange has said it has no evidence of customer data exfiltration so far and filed a formal complaint, while notifying affected customers and restoring services.

Why this matters beyond two headlines
These incidents underline a structural risk to telecom operations: the business-facing IT layer (portals, APIs, collaboration suites, ticketing, OSS/BSS) is tightly coupled to service delivery. When that layer is disrupted, even briefly, the blast radius includes provisioning, porting, billing, and customer support—functions that are essential for keeping networks useful even when the transport plane is healthy. Put simply, you can keep the fiber lit and still take the business offline.

The persistent threat to infrastructure
1. Converged attack surface. Operators run sprawling environments where identity systems, collaboration tools, and customer portals are intertwined. A foothold in IT often cascades into operational disruption that customers feel immediately.
2. Weak segmentation of the management plane. If the systems that administer voice, messaging, and porting aren’t isolated, ransomware in IT becomes downtime in services.
3. API and portal exposure. Self-service and automation are great for customers and attackers. Authentication weaknesses, session fixation, and token leakage are still routine findings.
4. Supply chain and shared platforms. Common stacks like SharePoint, Jira, ServiceNow, and CI/CD tools become monoculture targets. One missed patch, many victims.
5. Crisis communication gaps. Initial statements that minimize impact or avoid calling a cyberattack what it is slow coordination and damage credibility. Clarity is part of resilience.

What needs to change

Until operators decouple essential service management from business IT and treat transparency as an operational control, these “obvious” stories will keep hitting the wire—and the costs will compound.

#CyberSecurity#Telecom#CriticalInfrastructure#IncidentResponse#ZeroTrust#HardentheTarget#StayVigilant

Two telecom hits, same lesson: our infrastructure is still too easy to break