Telecom Firms Rebuild, Beef Up Security

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A653-2003Mar20.html

By Christopher Stern
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 21, 2003 

In the year and a half since terrorist attacks in New York and at the
Pentagon crippled communications networks along the East Coast,
telecommunications companies have invested heavily to fortify their
facilities.

Verizon Communications Inc. was hit the hardest in 2001 when iron
girders and rubble from the World Trade Center towers collapsed onto
its network facility in Lower Manhattan, severing service over more
than 200,000 telephone lines and 3 million data circuits. Tens of
millions of dollars' worth of equipment was covered in soot and
debris. A water-main break flooded the facility's basement. AT&T
Corp., meanwhile, had equipment in the basement of the towers that was
destroyed by the buildings' collapse.

Both companies have rebuilt their damaged facilities and, like other
telecommunications firms, have spent the past 18 months focusing on
ways to minimize disruptions in the future.

All over the country, telecommunications companies have added
fiber-optic lines, increased their ability to reroute traffic and
beefed up their security in response to lessons learned in the
September 2001 attacks. The federal government is also participating
in the effort by encouraging the industry to take additional steps to
protect its networks.

"One thing we learned from 9/11 is that redundancy works, but we have
to do more of it," said Mark Marchand, a Verizon spokesman.

Verizon, the dominant local phone provider from Maine to Virginia, was
able to get the New York Stock Exchange and other heavy
telecommunications users up and running within a week of the disaster
by rebuilding networks and rerouting calls to other parts of Verizon's
network.

Since the attacks, Verizon has spent $1.4 billion installing new
fiber-optic cables and equipment in Lower Manhattan. Long-distance
giant AT&T has made similar efforts to bolster its facilities, and
like Verizon, has redistributed equipment that had been based in Lower
Manhattan elsewhere in the city in an effort to protect itself from a
single event wiping out operations.

Qwest Communications International Inc, the largest local telephone
company in 14 western states, may have a 100-year history of
recovering from natural disasters such as blizzards, floods and
tornadoes, but the prospect of man-made threats forced the company to
rethink its emergency planning, according to Pamela J. Stegora Axberg,
senior vice president for national network services.

One of the first things the company did was to evaluate its buildings
for potential threats from car bombs and other attacks. Qwest then
worked with local municipalities to erect barricades and take other
precautions. The company has adjusted regular security at its
buildings based on what national security alerts are issued by the
Department of Homeland Security.

Jeffrey M. Goldthorp, chief of network technology at the Federal
Communications Commission, has been working with the nation's leading
telecommunications companies for the past year. He was reluctant to
discuss specifics but did point to one unnamed company that he said
recently moved a huge database to a hardened underground shelter. The
database will be a key resource in case the network, or any section of
it, needs to be rebuilt.

The FCC also recently orchestrated a series of "mutual aid" contracts
between companies that allow them to work together immediately after a
disaster without having to negotiate costs or other legal issues.

Stegora Axberg noted that the industry has always put a premium on
building reliability into its networks. Terrorism is just another
added consideration. "There is always more that we can keep doing. I
don't know if it is something you are ever done with," Stegora Axberg
said.




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