Several major ISPs have begun using Arbor Network's Peakflow SP security technology to provide security services to their enterprise customers. Some of the big names include Cable & Wireless, SAVVIS, Belgacom, COLT and Hydro One, the vendor said.

The number and variety of denial-of-service attacks and targeted extortion attempts on corporate enterprises is increasing, creating a need for preventative security measures that would provide guaranteed levels of network availability, according to the Gartner report "Hype Cycle for Infrastructure Protection, 2005."

"Managed security services give us that all important competitive edge," said Mark Hanvey, chief security officer for Cable & Wireless, in a statement. "Cyber attacks are volatile and debilitating for our enterprise customers, so as part of our multi-layered security approach, we embed mitigation solutions in our core network to protect their business critical environments... We currently offer this fully managed service to high street brands from retail, finance, media entertainment and gaming sectors as well as to ISPs and mobile carriers."

The majority of ISPs surveyed in the Arbor Networks' Global ISP Security Report, released in October 2005, reported that an average of 10 or more actionable attacks per month significantly impacted customer availability, with an average of 40 general attacks per month, the Ann Arbor, Mich., company said. In addition, the majority of tier one respondents to Arbor Networks' Worldwide ISP Security Report saw sustained attacks larger than 1 Gb/s in the last six months, with several attacks in the 5-8 Gb/s range.