AT&T Adds Worm And Virus Protection To Firewall Service

AT&T has announced that it has added worm and virus protection to its Internet Protect service network-based firewall that lets businesses protect themselves from a variety of threats without having to deploy firewalls at each of their locations.

The new capabilities, which will be added to the service next year, integrate worm and virus mitigation into AT&T's network-based firewall service. The firewall service deploys early identification and mitigation capabilities for attacks directly within the AT&T global IP network, and the firm claims that doing so can more effectively prevent attacks from proliferating and infiltrating customers' internal networks.

Among the users of the Internet Protect service are the United States Olympic Committee and Pitney Bowes, a provider of integrated mail and document management solutions.

"Once again, we are leading the industry by making early detection, intrusion prevention and cyber-attack mitigation available in the network, turning the network itself into a front-line security device," Kathleen Flaherty, AT&T chief marketing officer, said in a statement. "By using the network as a key security component, our customers can reduce the complexity of the overall security system. And reduced complexity can help make their operations much more secure."