DHS expands CenturyLink's work on Einstein

The Department of Homeland Security has tapped CenturyLink to provide Einstein 3 Accelerated protections to federal civilian agencies that cannot get the services through their existing Internet service providers.

CenturyLink, which was originally awarded a contract to provide Einstein services to federal customers in March 2013, has been providing civilian agencies with E3A services, including web Domain Name System protection, email filtering and intrusion prevention.

AT&T jumped on the E3A bandwagon in November, and Verizon also offers the network security shield. But agencies that obtain services from telecommunications carriers that do not participate in Einstein must turn to a third-party provider.

U.S. CIO Tony Scott announced plans to extend E3A protections to all agencies by Dec. 31 under the Cybersecurity Strategy and Implementation Plan, which also directs federal agencies to report major cybersecurity breaches to Congress within seven days of discovery.

The plan's other goals include issuing a governmentwide contract vehicle for cybersecurity incident response by April 30, 2016, and having the National Institute of Standards and Technology release guidance to help agencies recover from breaches by June 30, 2016.