Nortel Teams With Symantec

TORONTO -- Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] introduced the Nortel Application Switch with Symantec Intelligent Network Protection. The collaborative effort between Nortel and Symantec aims to ensure critical threats are identified and stopped before they can penetrate a company's network infrastructure and impact business.

Vulnerabilities, and the hackers who exploit them, are steadily increasing around the world, leaving IT organizations open to attack during the gap between discovery of a threat and deployment of a patch to protect against the new threat. Nortel's Application Switch with Symantec Intelligent Network Protection is designed to close that gap protecting against critical network-based threats. The new solution is expected to be available to customers in June.

Symantec Intelligent Network Protection incorporates Symantec's network intrusion prevention technologies into Nortel's Application Switch and complements existing network intrusion prevention and detection systems on the network. The Symantec technologies include an intelligent security inspection engine, automatic real-time threat protection updates and security content updates backed by Symantec.

"In today's world of increasingly sophisticated network attacks, security threats are top of mind with network administrators," said Bruce Meyer, senior network engineer, ProMedica Health System. "Nortel is making network security simple for us by integrating an additional layer of security into its Application Switch, giving us confidence that critical threats are being stopped at the edge of the ProMedica network."

To ensure the most up-to-date protection, Nortel customers can download the current security updates through Symantec LiveUpdate, providing customers real-time protection against the latest threats. Threat prevention updates provide proactive protection during critical threat outbreaks and secure unpatched systems against vulnerabilities in operating systems and applications.

"Coupling Nortel's ability to optimize and inspect network traffic with Symantec's intrusion prevention and security update technologies addresses the needs of both network and security administrators in an increasingly converged network environment," said Jeremy Burton, senior vice president, Security and Data Management Group, Symantec. "It builds on the defense-in-depth strategy so critical to the protection of today's networks."

Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT)

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC)