The Alliance said that AT&T’s addition “represents a step up in resources and insights offered by the Alliance as a whole” – especially with the US company’s acquisition of AlienVault in July 2018.
Barmak Meftah (pictured), president of AT&T Cybersecurity, said: “We are thrilled to be the first telco in North America to join the alliance, and to do so as a founding member.”
The Alliance pointed out that AT&T has established extensive cybersecurity capabilities and technologies. AlienVault has enabled the company to “accelerate delivering on its vision of enabling organisations of all sizes with effective cybersecurity solutions”.
Meftah added: “Hackers have well established and organised communities that cooperate to produce cyber threats and it’s time large network operators work together to help deliver disruptive innovations and enable our global customers to detect and respond to threats faster and protect their digital footprint.”
With its five telco members, the Alliance can harness the expertise of more than 6,000 security experts and a global network of more than 28 security operations centres. The members of the Alliance now cover more than 1.2 billion customers in more than 60 countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.
The Global Telco Security Alliance – which does not yet appear to have a website – plans to expand its scope of activities and global footprint over time and is open to adding new members in the future.
Meanwhile controversial telecoms equipment vendor Huawei yesterday opened its new Cyber Security Transparency Centre in Brussels.
Ken Hu, deputy chairman of the company, said: “We fully understand cyber security concerns that people have in this digital world. I believe that good solutions to solve the issue start from mutual understanding, which is the purpose we set up the transparency centre here today.”
Huawei said it aiming to offer government agencies, technical experts, industry associations, and standards organisations a platform at the new Brussels centre where they can communicate and collaborate to balance out security and development in the digital era.
Hu added: “We welcome all regulators, standards organisations and customers to fully use this platform to collaborate more closely on security standards, verification mechanisms, and security technology innovation.”
