How Telstra does security

Stuart Corner
Monday, 14 December 2009 05:41

IT Industry - Strategy

The recent opening by Telstra of a dedicated security operations centre to manage the security of both its own and customers' networks marks the culmination of a year long overhaul in the way Telstra secures its own networks and provides security services to customers.

Telstra announced the opening of the centre last month. According to Andy Solterbeck, director security services at Telstra, it presently has a staff of 40 but that number will grow to 100 by the end of 2009. He told iTWire that there had been a fundamental change over the past 12 months in the way Telstra runs both its internal security operations and provides security services to customers. "Telstra used to do security really well but we did it in about 27 different groups."

Now there are four people with lead responsibility for security within Telstra: Solterbeck who is responsible for the product and go-to market aspects of security services provided to customers; one who has responsibility for the security of all Telstra networks; one for the provision of managed services and one for professional services. Overall, Solterbeck said, there are about 350 people in Telstra with specific security roles.

Solterbeck told iTWire that the concept of a security ops centre with both internal and customer responsibilities was unusual among telcos, and had grown out of the belief that there were considerable benefits to be gained. "We were trying to leverage all the core security capabilities we have. Security is very much a critical mass business."

He added: "It was an exciting exercise. Telstra is a multi-headed beast and getting everybody to buy in to the idea was no mean feat. The fact that we were able to do this shows the level of visibility that security capability has in the company right now."

The establishment of the centre was made as Telstra saw a huge upsurge in demand for security services from tier 2 customers. Solterbeck said the upsurge over the past 12 months had been enormous and unexpected, from a market Telstra had not served well in the past.

"Telstra Enterprise and Government looks after the top 1500 customers, largely providing bespoke security solutions. At the bottom end we have provided basic managed security services for SMEs, such as firewall, IDS, etc. What we have not done well is serve tier 2 customers who are looking increasingly for us to deliver significant security capability out of our network as a managed service."

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