Your entire cybersecurity stack, from cloud firewalls and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) to endpoint protection, is built on a single, fragile assumption that your internet can and will stay up. But the moment a circuit drops, your security stack is effectively unplugged.
The Hidden Cybersecurity Risk No One Talks About
Your biggest vulnerability today isn’t a zero-day exploit; it’s the internet connection that powers your entire security stack. For many enterprises, a single hour offline can cost over $330,000. This doesn’t just affect overall productivity but also renders those expensive defenses useless. Firewalls go blind, threat feeds stop, and security policies become unenforceable.
This creates a window of unmanaged risk, which is magnified by remote staff who may switch to unsecured networks to get back online. Resilient connectivity is the only way to close this gap. As David Idle, Chief Product Officer of Bigleaf, notes, “We protect uptime, which indirectly strengthens your security posture by keeping all systems reliably online.”
Discover your company’s total cost of downtime with Bigleaf’s online calculator.
Security-Agnostic, Performance-Obsessed
Bigleaf Networks is built on a straightforward architectural choice. It runs outside the company’s security stack. That security-agnostic stance delivers reliable continuity without touching policies, rules, or configurations your team has tuned. The platform does not aim to replace a firewall or proxy either, but it maintains reachability to those controls so they remain available and effective. “This security-agnostic approach ensures our customers can keep their preferred security infrastructure, while we focus on optimizing performance and providing always-on connectivity,” says David.
The design keeps the focus on performance. Positioned between the business and its mix of internet circuits, Bigleaf measures path quality in real time and steers traffic across circuits on the WAN side of your firewall, maintaining connectivity without changing your security policies. Applications keep stable sessions, from voice and video to transactional and cloud systems. Users stay connected, and the security tools you chose continue to enforce policy because connectivity is available and steady.
Downtime Costs More Than You Think
A dropped connection triggers a domino effect that financial reports often do not capture. It’s the stalled production line waiting on a single part, the customer support queue full of frustrated clients, and all else that drains momentum and corrodes the business long after the circuit is restored.
David Idle points out, “Most businesses calculate the cost of downtime in lost minutes, but the real impact is in lost momentum and trust.” He adds, “Every second your systems are offline, you’re not just losing money; you’re eroding customer confidence and handing an advantage to your competitors.”
When you view connectivity resilience as a core control (may it be through planned redundancy, continuous performance monitoring, or rapid failover), it helps limit these residual losses and preserves the reliability customers expect.
Always-On Connectivity, No Matter What
“Always on” should be a part of every business’s architectural stance. Cloud apps and off-prem security only help when the path to them stays available. A practical posture utilizes path diversity across carriers and access types, with links maintained active simultaneously and routes adjusted in real-time based on quality.
Bigleaf fits that model without forcing policy changes. The service operates outside the security stack and continuously monitors path health to measure loss and latency (including jitter) and then moves active sessions to a healthier circuit before users experience any impact. From an operator’s perspective, this reduces unsafe workarounds and avoids false alarms tied to visibility gaps. It also keeps maintenance windows from turning into outages because alternative paths already carry traffic.
What This Means for Technology Teams
The smartest move in this complex issue is simplicity. Every extra knob, exception, and manual workaround is another chance for work to stop. Vendors matter only insofar as they remove friction. That is the bar worth setting in roadmaps and budgets: fewer decisions in a crisis, fewer skills required to keep the lights on, and fewer surprises for customers. If a solution can’t make complexity vanish, it’s simply adding to the problem. If it can, it earns its place.
