AT&T pitches security service for IP VPNs

AT&T says it’s rolling out a new service that promises to add a heightened level of security to all of its IP-based VPN services.

The carrier says it will launch its Intranet Protect service in June. The offering lets any of its IP VPN customers add security features that are similar to AT&T’s anti-distributed denial of service (DDoS) Internet Protect offering.

The fully managed service requires no additional software or hardware. The carrier essentially turns on the ability to scan "NetFlow coming off of all routers,” says Stan Quintana, executive director of product marketing.

The service scans NetFlow data across any AT&T-deployed IP VPN service, says Steve Hutnik, senior technical security manager at AT&T. The service “analyzes Layer 3 and Layer 4 traffic information … like a call account record.”

The carrier then takes this information and compares it to what it knows are normal traffic patterns and behaviors, which enables AT&T to quickly detect unusual behavior, Quintana says. The service is like AT&T’s “Internet Protect mining engine except it’s for private networks,” he says.

The service also provides customers with a “risk index,” Hutnik says. This ranking lets network administrators easily see how many PCs are attempting to contact malicious servers as a bot or just unknowingly. This ranking could alert customers to new worms or botnet attacks.

The service also lets customers set up “an unlimited number of custom policies,” he adds.

AT&T is managing the service from network data centers based in North Carolina, the United Kingdom and Singapore.

The initial service does not proactively stop the attack. Once an anomaly is detected, AT&T notifies the user via e-mail, pager or telephone, and then the anomaly is manually addressed. Quintana says future versions of Intranet Protect will automate the mitigation piece.

A handful of customers have been “kicking the tires” on the service for at least eight months, Quintana says. Although AT&T would not reveal the customer names, Quintana describes one as a multinational, foreign-based electronics company and another as an engineering business that serves many vertical industries.

AT&T would not reveal pricing.