Verizon Business is rolling out a new portfolio of converged solutions that address the security and performance challenges faced by large corporations. The new solutions span the entire IT “stack,” which is the computing structure that includes the network, data, application and user layers.
Verizon Business believes this integrated approach will enable companies to more efficiently build a secure, high-performance communications and IT infrastructure while addressing a critical issue that enterprise IT organizations often struggle with: how to seamlessly work between the IT groups responsible for different layers of the stack in order to avoid data breaches and poor application performance affecting the daily operations of an organization.
Verizon Business’ new solutions portfolio, which initially consists of five converged offerings, features Virtual Discovery and Classification (VDC). The VDC service combines professional services, security log analysis and advanced tools to analyze an organization’s Internet traffic to discover unusual malicious or unexpected traffic patterns and connections that can potentially cause harm to a customer’s network.
The VDC service analyzes an organization’s Internet traffic data using advanced processes and tools and a variety of analysis techniques to map and characterize this traffic. This analysis aims to discover so-called “unknown connections,” which have been linked to 27 percent of successful attacks according to Verizon Business’ “2008 Data Breach Investigation Report.” The new service also helps detect the actual source of attack activity and has successfully been used by Verizon in helping to find the origin of a customer’s data breach.
The service also detects suspicious connections involving network usage by an enterprise’s current and former business partners, a category that the Verizon data breach report found responsible for 39 percent of the worst computer-crime cases, and is the fastest-growing category of risk to enterprises.
Other areas the service analyzes are: telecommuters’ connections to an enterprise’s virtual private network (VPN), which can be compromised even though it is set up to protect against security breaches; violations of the customer’s corporate IT and security policies, which many times point to unapproved usage of services; configuration issues resulting from improperly configured devices or other anomalies; and a history of previous attacks that provide insight into the origin of the threat.
The VDC offering is available immediately to U.S.-based enterprises. Verizon Business plans to launch the four other converged solutions during the first half of this year. They are:
- Application Performance and Vulnerability Assessment, which offers an expert assessment of critical business applications resulting in recommendations to improve both performance and security.
- PCI-ready E-commerce Solution, which combines hosting and application management offerings with security services to help an organization become PCI compliant with regard to safeguarding credit card transactions.
- CoLo Vulnerability Management Service, which integrates vulnerability management services into a data center colocation environment, using a self-service model to deliver end-to-end security.
- Secure Virtualization Design Services, which help enterprises redesign an existing IT infrastructure to achieve the benefits of virtualization while maintaining a secure environment.
All findings are communicated directly to the client by a dedicated expert who helps guide the interpretation, analysis, remediation and other recommendations.
http://www.verizonbusiness.com/solutions/professional
