COVID-19 Business Continuity: Frequently Asked Questions

04/9/2020

Neustar, Inc. has been intensely focused on the continuity of its business in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. In late February, Neustar started the process of putting in place plans to address potential business interruptions related to COVID-19. We created a COVID-19 Task Force to support our regular Business Continuity Plans (BCP) and have had detailed executive oversight over the program.

Our team has shown tremendous flexibility, resilience and a commitment to provide uninterrupted services to our customers. We have and will continue to put in place measures to ensure that, to the best of our ability, Neustar maintains the service our customers have come to expect.

The FAQ below was created in response to questions we have received about our BCP and the way we are dealing with the worldwide impacts of COVID-19.

We greatly appreciate your support during this challenging time.

1. What actions have you taken to mitigate disruptions due to COVID-19?

   We have both a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and a Pandemic Plan. Collectively, these plans provide a roadmap to prepare for, respond to, and maintain operations under a wide variety of circumstances, including technology outages, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and pandemics. Our goal with these plans is to protect the well-being of our employees and, in turn, maintain operations without interruption of key services to our customers in the event of unforeseen circumstances that impact our colleagues, partnerships, or our ability to access our offices.

   In response to COVID-19 and out of an abundance of caution, our Business Continuity Plan processes have been activated. In accordance with these processes, we are operating at the highest levels of preparedness for non-routine business events. Additionally, we’ve established a COVID-19 Task Force. The Task Force includes business leaders representing all critical functions across our company and will support the organization regarding the ongoing assessment of, and response to, business risks.

   We’ve directed all non-essential employees to work from home. Neustar, currently, has sufficient and secure systems, tools, and network capability in place to support a 100% remote workforce. We have confirmed secondary and tertiary resources for critical roles.

   We’ve received assurances from our critical third-party providers that they have their own business continuity measures in place. Given the unique nature and reach of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, we continue to communicate closely with these providers to ensure the robustness of these continuity plans and will monitor for any changes in status.

2. Do you anticipate potential disruption to any of the services you supply?

   No. Neustar’s services are architected for resilience and are 24x7x365 operated on our globally distributed infrastructure and managed from multiple independent locations around the world. In light of the COVID-19 event:

   • We are currently operating with no material COVID-19 related service or operational capability impact across our businesses.
   • Our Operations team continues to monitor service health and will react to abnormal events and ensure that customers are notified if conditions change.

3. What actions have you taken to ensure that third parties will not impact your ability to deliver services?

   As part of activating our Business Continuity Management process, we have secured business continuity assurances from our critical third party partners and suppliers, and set up a communication channel with each of them to monitor their operational and business continuity status alongside our own until we are back in a regular/normal working situation.

4. How will we be notified of any impacts Neustar experiences and where can we get the latest information?

   Customers impacted by changes in status will be notified directly by their account teams. In addition, Neustar has created a landing page at www.home.neustar/covid-19-update for the latest information on Covid-19 impacts to customers. Our first post there was March 11 and we will continue to update on a monthly cadence – or more frequently as the situation warrants.

5. What are you doing to establish and enforce security requirements for employees and visitors?

   • Neustar offices are closed until August 17. After that, we will use a phased approach for returning to our offices. Our return to office process is based upon internal and external readiness factors which will dictate when our respective offices can re-open.
   • We’ve directed all non-essential employees to work from home.
   • Employees essential to the operation of our Network Operations Center, Security Operations Center, and Data Centers continue to work onsite.
   • We’ve restricted all non-essential visitors from entering Neustar offices (see announcement here). Essential visitors are those who absolutely require access to our offices. For example, Data Center physical security guards and office deep cleaning teams.
   • All Neustar offices are equipped with operational and monitored physical security access control.
   • Neustar operated Data Centers maintain on-site Security.
   • Neustar, currently, has sufficient systems, tools, and network capability in place to support a 100% remote workforce using the latest multi-factor VPN technology to continue to provide uninterrupted availability and support to our customers and business.