Lumen’s Readiness to Meet Global Events

We have been actively monitoring Russia's invasion of Ukraine and wanted to ensure you had our latest update on our readiness for this world event.

A: Our physical network is disconnected in Russia – all the way down to the hardware – and we’re abiding by sanction requirements applicable to Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine. We are not providing any services in Russia – that includes peering agreements/services with other carriers. We do provide services to ISPs outside Russia who are routing traffic into the country.

A: We are immediately stopping our limited operations in Russia. We do not have any consumer customers in Russia but for the extremely small number of enterprise customers we have, this means we will no longer provide local Lumen services.

A: We decided to disconnect the network due to increased security risk inside Russia.

We have not yet experienced network disruptions, but given the increasingly uncertain environment and the heightened risk of state action, we took this move to ensure the security of our and our customers’ networks, as well as the ongoing integrity of the global Internet.

A: We plan to stop business operations immediately. We’ve begun customer notifications, shutting down the business from a legal and regulatory standpoint as well as taking other steps for exiting the business in region.

A: As a general rule, we don’t share customer information. However, we are not a local ISP, and we don’t have any consumer customers in Russia.

A: Our account teams are starting to reach out to talk with the few business customers who are operating in Russia.

A: We provide limited services to a few customers in Ukraine – we have no employees there. Although we will abide by sanction requirements applicable to Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, we are not leaving Ukraine. In addition to our services, our people around the globe have already started giving to non-profits providing aide to Ukrainian citizens. Lumen promises to match our people’s individual contributions through our own giving platform up to $1,000 USD (or currency equivalent), with a corporate match up to $1 million USD.

A: Our Black Lotus Labs intelligence team is monitoring Russian threat activity both in the region and around the world. Black Lotus Labs is working with industry partners, including the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC), as we continue to monitor the evolving situation in Ukraine. As of May 1, we have found no evidence of any cyberattacks impacting our network that can be attributed to current geopolitical tensions.

A: As of May 1, we can confirm that we found no evidence of any impact to Lumen or any of our customers. As part of our normal protocol, we monitor the network 24/7 around the globe to assess all potential impacts to our network. In times like this, our Black Lotus Labs intelligence division provides a significant advantage to our company and our customers.

A: We have been working with our vendors for quite some time. We started working with our global supply chain vendors early to secure any supply chain needs. Lumen does not see any immediate change in our ability to provide services or in our critical materials supply chain. We will continue to work with them to stay on top of this evolving issue. Bottom line - we’ve planned for this situation and are prepared.

A: We have done multiple things to prepare, including but not limited to the following:

• Our business interactions in Russia and Ukraine are not material. Our business continuity management plans have been enacted to safeguard Lumen employees, assets, stakeholders​ and our reputation in the event of a potential critical business disruption.
• We’re continually assessing risks and formulating detailed action plans in response to ongoing geopolitical tensions. 
• Our playbooks are consistent with government recommendations to ensure network resiliency, facilities access, and cyber preparedness. 
• Lumen leads regular disaster recovery exercises and partners with global organizations to ensure our business impact analysis documents are up to date.
• By aligning to the company's goals and using a proven standards-based framework, we’ve prepared Lumen’s mission critical functions to recover effectively if a major incident occurs.  

A: Yes, this is an evolving situation; our monitoring efforts will continue around the clock.

A: Yes, we continue to monitor the situation and the account team will be in immediate contact if there is any exposure to our customers.

A: We have security measures in place at all levels of the network – hardware, software, and data protection.

A: Lumen operates a Physical Security Operations Center (PSOC) that provides 24x7 continuous monitoring of our Lumen physical infrastructure globally. Additionally, Lumen has security guards staffed at appropriate locations globally to respond to incidents as part of our operations.

A: Like other companies, we're working through how global sanctions impact customers in the region and recently issued some guidelines for any new deals involving Russia or Ukraine. Rest assured, we will comply with all regulatory orders, sanctions requirements, and related restrictions, and we will communicate directly with customers who are impacted.

A: We set up a special mailbox for customers and Lumen employees who have questions about sanctions: sanctions.compliance@lumen.com and a dedicated site https://news.lumen.com/RussiaUkraine where they can go to get the latest information.