Secure email continuity during outages

Keep email flowing safely during provider outages or failovers.

Plan for upstream failures

Map critical flows—orders, invoices, support—and define how they should behave during outages.

• Queue inbound mail with tamper-proof logs.
• Allow read-only access to recent mail for execs.
• Prioritize outbound alerts from monitoring tools.

Keep security on

Your continuity path should preserve filtering, authentication, and logging so attackers cannot slip in during chaos.

• Maintain SPF/DKIM signing on backup routes.
• Apply the same phishing and malware policies on failover.
• Export continuity logs to SIEM in real time.

Test twice a year

Run tabletop exercises and live failover tests. Measure RTO/RPO and user impact, and publish the playbook.

• Simulate vendor outages and DNS failures.
• Document rollback steps and owners.
• Track time-to-resolution after each drill.