AT&T CTO assures network virus proof

On the heels of recent power outages and virus attacks that left many companies crippled, AT&T chief technology officer Hossein Eslamblochi today assured that AT&T’s IP network handled the onslaught without a hitch and more measures are being taken to make its business infrastructure fail-safe.

While events like the blackouts that plagued the eastern U.S. last month are rare, computer virus and worm attacks are becoming more frequent, Eslambolchi said. “We’ve seen more virus attacks in the last six months than we’ve seen in the previous 10 years,” Eslambolchi said during an analysts’ call today. “IP networks will continue to grow. It’s safe to say the number of viruses and worms will grow with it.”

During virus attacks all year, AT&T servers and routers suffered no serious down time. During some of the most intense attacks, latency over AT&T’s IP network never rose more than a few milliseconds, Eslambolchi said. “Our objective is that no single failure due to viruses or worms will ever effect our network,” Eslambolchi said.

Currently AT&T has a seven-layer security protocol to fight off external attacks, including in-house developed software that identifies machine addresses of infected machines and analyzes all traffic flow in the network, identifying and isolating hostile traffic patterns.