AT&T (NYSE: T) hopes to unburden more businesses from having to implement their own network security platform with the introduction of its new Cloud Web Security offering.
Designed to appeal to any size business, the key selling point is that the cloud-based service can provide real-time protection against viruses, malware and compromised web sites without the need to deploy and maintain on-site equipment.
Leveraging Blue Coat Systems' Security Policy and Enforcement Center, the service enables customers to enforce consistent global security policies over any wired, roaming and mobile environments.
Other benefits of the service are reduced cost and real-time malware protection.
Users can pay for what they need and scale their web threat protection via a web-based portal. To block malware, the service uses a combination of sophisticated, real-time analysis, malware scanning and shared threat intelligence from 75 million users to block suspicious and malicious web content. In addition, the service enables IT teams to identify and quarantine infected systems by blocking communications to command and control servers.
Among the benefits are the customized web application controls, which allow customers to set policies to manage application use based on a wide range of criteria, including user, group, applications, operations, postings and media transfer controls.
Cloud has been a major driver for AT&T. In January, the telco revealed that it plans to have 90 percent of its own applications in the cloud. The service provider is also extending VPN services into the cloud and cloud-enabling services that enterprise customers use from Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and other providers.
For more:
- see the release
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