OREANDA-NEWS. February 29, 2016.  CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) today announced it has enhanced its Managed Security Services Suite with the addition of five integrated security monitoring and analysis services that help organizations improve their security posture and respond more effectively to cyberattacks. The suite is available immediately in the U.S., either as a stand-alone service or as an add-on for customers buying hosting, networking and colocation services.

The new services will be delivered over a CenturyLink-built security platform that leverages both traditional security information and event management (SIEM) technologies and customized tools to provide an extended set of analysis and response capabilities. The fully managed platform is designed to be the backbone for an organization's current and future security services, as it offers a holistic approach for protecting networks, as well as preventing, mitigating and responding to attacks. Using the platform's web-based security portal, customers and CenturyLink security experts can access real-time data to quickly analyze and act on security incidents in their critical environments. 

The platform features the following integrated services:

  • Security Log Monitoring – A comprehensive log correlation and monitoring service ingests event data from a multitude of servers and is backed 24X7 by GAIC-certified security analysts.
  • Trending & Data Analysis – A data analysis engine adds deep historical insights to any log data and enables comprehensive reporting, helping teams understand their evolving threat landscape.
  • Incident Management and Response Service – An overlay expert response team is available 24x7 to vet incidents and respond quickly to possible attacks.
  • Managed Protection Services – An automated device monitoring and management service provides deep insights from next-generation firewall services.
  • Vulnerability & Risk Monitoring – A proactive scanning service discovers and prioritizes possible threats, and eradicates them before impact.

"Organizations need to become more threat-focused by quickly identifying and prioritizing potential adversaries and vulnerabilities," said Tim Kelleher, vice president, IT security services, at CenturyLink. "Our Managed Security Services Suite enables enterprises to meet this challenge head-on. By combining tool-based and human-powered threat management activities, CenturyLink helps organizations ease the burden of having to manage security in-house."

The suite delivers several benefits, including:

  • An analytics platform and intuitive customer portal, which gives customers the ability to analyze data, report on potential threats and garner real-time insight into security events. Users can quickly leverage the portal's many features, including at-a-glance threat profiles, tracking, ticket creation and resolution reporting.
  • A flexible SIEM back-end, which can accept client-specific asset and vulnerability data from literally any location or alternative SIEM and provide insights on real-time threat activity. This allows organizations to reap the benefits of their past cybersecurity investments when migrating to CenturyLink's security platform.
  • More effective compliance capabilities, through a combination of human-powered and automated resources and tools that address the need for proactive log correlation and analysis, incident-response and continuous monitoring. The suite is designed to help customers more closely adhere to certain compliance requirements, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), among others.

"With breaches, it's no longer a matter of if, but when they will happen," said Christina Richmond, program director, security services, IDC. "Many organizations still aren't equipped well enough to safeguard their networks and customer information. Offerings like CenturyLink's Managed Security Services Suite are well suited to help enterprises and small businesses defend themselves."

The suite furthers CenturyLink's ongoing commitment to security services. CenturyLink, which helps organizations deploy flexible hybrid IT strategies that drive positive business outcomes, delivers a broad range of IT security solutions, consulting and network services. The company expects to continue investing in the security area. CenturyLink has appeared in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Managed Security Services, Worldwide1 for the past three years. Also, Forrester Research named CenturyLink a leader in The Forrester WaveTM: DDoS Services Providers, Q3 20152.

About CenturyLink
CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is a global communications, hosting, cloud and IT services company enabling millions of customers to transform their businesses and their lives through innovative technology solutions. CenturyLink offers network and data systems management, Big Data analytics and IT consulting, and operates more than 55 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia. The company provides broadband, voice, video, data and managed services over a robust 250,000-route-mile U.S. fiber network and a 300,000-route-mile international transport network. Visit CenturyLink for more information.

1 Gartner, Inc.; Magic Quadrant for Managed Security Services, Kelly M. Kavanaugh and Toby Bussa; December 23, 2015
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2 Forrester Research; The Forrester Wave™ DDoS Services Providers, Q3 2015; Ed Ferrara and Rick Holland; July 22, 2015