OREANDA-NEWS. CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) was recently awarded a service expansion  contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide EINSTEIN 3 Accelerated (E3A) protections to U.S. federal civilian agencies that cannot access E3A services through their existing Internet service provider.

CenturyLink was previously awarded a contract to provide EINSTEIN cybersecurity protections to the company's customers in March 2013.

Through E3A, CenturyLink has been offering web Domain Name System protections, advanced email filtering and signature-based intrusion prevention security services to federal civilian agencies that receive their Internet service through CenturyLink.

This service expansion contract allows CenturyLink to offer E3A services to departments and agencies that receive their Internet service from other providers that aren't able to deploy these critical cybersecurity protections.

The new contract helps DHS strengthen America's defense against growing cyber threats and meet the objectives outlined by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson to make E3A protections available to all federal civilian agencies by the end of 2015. 

DHS's EINSTEIN program uses network traffic patterns indicating known or suspected malicious cyber activity to help participating federal agencies protect their IT systems.  

EINSTEIN capabilities are provided through a combination of commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software, government-developed software, and commercially available managed security services that are enhanced by DHS-provided information.

"CenturyLink is excited to be able to offer EINSTEIN cybersecurity protections to more federal agencies," said CenturyLink Senior Vice President and General Manager Tim Meehan, who leads the company's federal government team. "CenturyLink's E3A service was the first to achieve initial operating capability from DHS and the first fully operational E3A system to begin actively providing cybersecurity services to federal civilian agencies' end-users."    

CenturyLink is also a fully approved commercial services provider under the DHS Enhanced Cybersecurity Services (ECS) program, which helps U.S.-based companies protect their IT systems from unauthorized access, exploitation and data exfiltration.

By supplying E3A and ECS services over its carrier-class network, CenturyLink is able to provide federal government agencies and U.S.-based companies with the information security and reliability they need to carry out their missions.

CenturyLink is ranked No. 37 on Washington Technology's 2015 Top 100 list of federal government IT contractors.