Sprint to Roll Out Security Service

LAS VEGAS — Sprint Corp. on Wednesday will announce a new set of security consulting services designed to help enterprise customers assess the state of their networks security.

The new offering comprises an external scan, a penetration test and a wireless LAN survey. Sprint, of Overland Park, Kan., will offer each of the services individually or as a package.

As the telecom shakeout continues, many carriers are turning to things such as security services for more reliable revenue streams.

Sprints external scan service is essentially a vulnerability assessment in which the companys analysts use two separate scanning tools to probe the customers network for weak points. The outputs of the two scans are then synthesized into one report on the networks state of vulnerability along with some remediation suggestions.

During the penetration test, the analysts use common attack methodologies and attempt to exploit common vulnerabilities, escalate privileges once network access is granted and collect information about the network from the inside.

And the wireless LAN survey involves a consultant walking around a customer site trying to detect Wi-Fi traffic and determine what, if any, authentication and encryption technologies are in use.