ASHBURN, Va., Oct. 20 (UPI) -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has called in Verizon Business to strengthen the security of its sprawling international networks amid rising concerns throughout the Western Hemisphere over cybercrime and amateur and organized hacking of sensitive computer systems.
NATO granted Verizon Business a $5 million contract to start work on securing its vast and complex networks that radiate from the organization headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, across Europe and North America and many points beyond.
NATO networks have been expanding since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 right across what used to the Warsaw Pact region.
More recently, NATO networks have expanded to Asian geographical regions, including countries the organization considers suspect or hostile, because of NATO's involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The Obama administration declared October a Cybersecurity Awareness Month, but European attitudes to cybercrime show few signs of a practical or comprehensive response to cybercrime, analysts said.
Numerous publicized examples of neglectful loss of sensitive data, financial fraud and identity theft throughout the NATO region point to serious underlying problems the military security establishment seems reluctant to discuss, analysts said.
The Verizon contract is for a two-year period, open to extension for another year, and will be carried out with focus on helping the NATO Command, Control and Communications Agency strengthen NATO's network security. As part of the deal, NC3A has been promised a package of networking and security services, Verizon said.
The C3 agency provides the alliance with consulting, command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance -- operations that require extensive online interaction.
The work will be carried out mainly by Verizon Cybertrust Security in Belgium, a Verizon unit, and will involve establishing "a highly resilient virtual private network for approximately 30 locations on the agency's existing network," Verizon said.
The company will provide secure gateways to and from the Internet as well as the Public Key Infrastructure encryption for users on the network.
NATO was founded 50 years ago to fulfill the goals of the North Atlantic Treaty and now includes 28 countries in North America and Europe. The treaty, signed in Washington on April 4, 1949, aims "to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization" of member countries, even when the mission extends beyond European borders, as in the case of Afghanistan.
"Because of its international makeup and special mission, NATO has a unique set of security requirements," said Susan Zeleniak, group president of Verizon Federal.
Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications, based in Ashburn, Va., provides managed security services to governments around the world and is the largest provider of communications services to the U.S. government.
