Verizon Business this week expanded its managed security services with an offering designed to safeguard corporate information from phishing, spyware, malware and viruses.

The carrier is launching Managed Web Content Services, which it says halts Internet threats. The network-based service is also intended to enable companies to monitor and enforce employee Internet usage policies.

Citing data from Forrester Research, Verizon Business says North American technology decision-makers ranked viruses and worms, employees acting in unauthorized ways, and spyware among the top five IT security threats. So it’s no coincidence that the carrier’s Managed Web Content Services performs antispyware, anti-virus and URL filtering in an effort to stop malicious content before it reaches a company’s network.

The anti-virus service scans Web traffic to identify known viruses and detect characteristics of potential threats. The anti-spyware service is intended to deny access to Web sites that exhibit potential of threats from spyware, malware and phishing.

URL filtering tracks employee Internet usage to block access to Web sites that do not meet corporate usage policies.

Verizon Business is using software from MessageLabs as well as access to that company’s data centers as the basis for its service. Message Labs has similar arrangements with other service providers.

Service-level agreements (SLAs) cover availability, virus scanning, latency and activation. They are 100% platform availability, 100% blockage of known Web-based malware, 30-day activation for organizations with less than 100,000 users, 45-day activation for those with 100,000 or more users, and scanning time that takes less than 1.249 seconds.

Managed Web Content Services is available to U.S.-based multinational customers. Based on a typical implementation with 1,000 corporate end-users and a three-year term, the three-pronged package costs $3 per user per month after a one-time set-up charge of $80 per user.

Individually, Web Anti-Virus and Web Anti-Spyware are $2.03 per user, per month for a site with 1,000 corporate end-users and a three-year term. Web URL Filtering costs $1.50 per user, per month.

One- and two-year contract terms are also available, Verizon Business says.