Communications provider CenturyLink [CTL] on Thursday said it has added its cyber intrusion prevention product that is supported by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to the General Services Administration’s IT Schedule 70 contract, making it easier for state and local governments to acquire the cyber security services.
CenturyLink is an approved commercial services provider under the DHS Enhanced Cyber Security Services (ECS) program, which is an intrusion prevention capability that helps public or private sector entities in the United States protect their computer systems against unauthorized access, exploitation, and data exfiltration.
Through the ECS program DHS shares sensitive and classified cyber threat information with the accredited ECS providers, which are called Commercial Service Providers (CSPs). The CSPs in turn use the cyber threat indicators to block certain types of malicious traffic from entering customer networks.
“CenturyLink is pleased to offer Enhanced Cybersecurity Services to state and local government agencies through its GSA IT Schedule 70 contract,” Tim Meehan, senior vice president and general manager at CenturyLink, said in a statement. “Adding ECS to our IT Schedule 70 contract underscores our commitment to help state and local governments defend their networks against cyber attacks.”
Other approved CSPs are AT&T [T], Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Verizon [VZ].
The ECS program offers three service offerings, including Domain Name Service Sinkholing to block access to specified malicious domain names, E-mail Filtering to block email with specified malicious criteria from entering a network, and Netflow Analysis that uses passive detection to identify threats.