With responsibility comes revenue – why network operators should be responsible for protecting consumers and SMBs.

Erez Antebi is the president and chief executive officer of Allot, the provider of network intelligence and security solutions that empower communications service providers (CSPs) and enterprises to protect their customers and users.

Allot Secure, the company’s network-based security platform, is widely used to position CSPs as security-as-a-service providers and recently introduced modules, IoTSecure and HomeSecure, enable service providers to secure enterprise and consumer IoT deployments at the network layer, in both fixed and mobile networks. Allot Secure delivers anywhere, any device, any threat protection and says customer CSPs generate value-added-service revenue of 10-15% on top of pure connectivity by deploying Allot Secure.

With 5G arriving and hyperscale IoT underway, he tells George Malim that CSPs are the natural providers of protection from cyber threats and by focusing on security capabilities in the network and in home routers they can provide their customers with confidence that their homes and lives are secure.

George Malim: How do you see the increasing threats to both consumers and small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) changing attitudes to cybersecurity and how people are protected?

Erez Antebi: In order to protect consumers, there needs to be a shift in who is responsible. In the past in the corporate world, someone has been responsible for protecting us in the form of the corporate IT department which had the security experts necessary to protect corporate users. For consumers there has been nobody out there who has been charged with protecting them and they have been responsible for protecting themselves.

The means to do this has been fragmented and relies upon users choosing and buying security applications and then ensuring they download and update them on all of their devices. This isn’t sustainable long term or even in the short term so the mismatch between consumer and corporate users is very obvious. 95% of consumers just don’t do anything to protect themselves.

For cybersecurity to work, responsibility has to be taken and, in my opinion, the network operator has to be the one to take that responsibility. They should be the ones to protect consumers from threats on their networks and they should provide secure and safe internet access to protect their customers from cybercriminals.

I view it in the same way as water. At home, you buy from the water utility and expect to drink the water directly from the tap. I don’t expect to have to filter and purify the water and it should be the same thing with the internet, it’s a necessity and a commodity so the providers of network access should provide it securely.

The good news is this change is happening and CSPs are seeing the necessity to take responsibility and consumers expect them to. Our role at Allot in this is to provide the technology to the operators to enable them to protect their customers and their networks.

Continue reading this interview on page 18 inside VanillaPlus magazine Q3