Problem:
Symantec was interested in obtaining real-time, enterprise-wide visibility and control of their voice network. They sought a platform capable of providing real-time visibility of call activity and gathering and analyzing network performance and resource usage metrics with consolidated reporting—independent of vendor or implementation. Symantec was also very aware of the need to eliminate unauthorized access to the voice and data network through vulnerabilities such as modems.

Solution:
The ETM® System demonstrated its capability to manage and secure the telecommunications network of a geographically distributed enterprise when it was deployed to monitor and control several of Symantec’s analog, T1, and PRI spans at their headquarters in Cupertino, California, and their call center in Eugene, Oregon, as part of a 90-day TeleWatch Secure SM Assessment Service. Since August 2001, Symantec has incrementally deployed the ETM System on spans in all of their North American (U.S. and Canadian), and select European sites.

Benefits:
Symantec’s Communications Manager sits down at her ETM System’s Performance Manager first thing every morning to get a real-time, centralized, enterprise-wide view of the status of Symantec’s telecom resources. The health and status of Symantec’s entire telecommunications network is a prime interest, particularly the smaller sites that don’t have their own telecom personnel. She can monitor telecom signaling error and availability conditions for the entire enterprise, and automatically receives email and pager alerts when an issue occurs. With the ETM System diagnostic tools, she diagnoses and troubleshoots common span/trunk faults and determines whether the problem is on site or in the Central Office (CO). She no longer needs to send a subcontractor to a problem site to check out what she can now quickly determine on her own.

The ETM Voice Firewall implements Symantec’s granular, administrator-defined security policies to prevent abusive or malicious use of their telecom resources by both internal and external callers. Specific policies terminating inbound calls to, and outbound calls from all unauthorized modems eliminate the risk of an attacker finding non-secure modems, as well as the risk of employees installing modems on their phone lines to circumvent the data firewall’s filters.

Symantec actively uses the ETM Usage Manager’s report generation capabilities, routinely creating scheduled reports to be automatically generated and delivered to designated recipients via email, or designated locations on the corporate data network or web server. A wide range of reports are generated, from performance reports, such as trunk resource utilization, average or peak call activity, trunk health-and-status, and central office error conditions, to cost allocation and bill verification reports, to security and forensic reports, such as detailed analysis of suspicious modem or fax activities, potential toll fraud, or service abuse.

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