Clavister and Nokia renew cyber security partnership

Örnsköldsvik, Sweden – Clavister, a leader in European cybersecurity for mission-critical applications today announced a renewal agreement with Nokia to strengthen their long-serving partnership and to meet the growing demands for 5G security.

Nokia offers a broad range of network security solutions and services to the telecommunications market. In 2016 Clavister began a partnership with Nokia to offer firewall solutions to its customers powered by Clavister’s Netshield, which has been deployed at more than 30 Tier-1 Communication Service Providers (CSPs).

NetShield is a carrier-grade, high performance network firewall and 5G security product that prevents unauthorized intrusion by forming a barrier between the core network and the outside world. NetShield is specifically designed for virtual environments with linear scaling but is also available on hardware to serve all needs. NetShield supports hybrid network models and helps CSPs to transition from 3G and 4G to 5G in a secure way.

As part of the new partnership agreement, Nokia will include NetShield amongst solutions proposed in Nokia Managed Firewall Services (MFS) under Nokia Managed Security Services (MSS). Nokia MFS combines the advanced telco-grade features of Clavister (taking care of the technology part) with the essential services model around firewall to make it a holistic solution for Nokia’s customers, offered ‘as a service’. Through Nokia MFS offering, customers will be able to take advantage of Clavister’s new subscription-based pricing model to scale-up to their specific needs and Nokia’s highly experienced operational teams.

5G presents new challenges as well as opportunities for CSPs. As 5G becomes more prevalent, CSPs have to not only rethink their own cyber security strategy but also look at cyber security as an opportunity for their enterprise revenue growth as evident by the latest research by TM Forum. Demand for private 5G is also on the rise and from the cyber security perspective, private networks allow enterprises to configure their cybersecurity better and strengthen the perimeter security.

As a leader in 5G solutions and Managed Services, Nokia brings its expertise to CSPs to tackle 5G specificities in cybersecurity domain including managing core network security via firewalls. Nokia has identified that it is of upmost importance for enterprises and CSPs to rely on the right expertise and deep knowledge of 5G mechanisms and usage enterprises during both ‘Build and Manage’ & ‘Operate’ phases. As a trusted partner to the telecommunication sector and with deep domain expertise, Nokia is in a strong position to help enterprises with MFS solution from its MSS portfolio and Clavister is happy to play its part in securing critical networks. CSPs are looking for network security solutions that are designed for cloud environments and enable rapid scalability, high data throughput and easy management, in a cost-efficient manner and NetShield provides just that.

Clavister recently conducted NetShield performance test in Intel Labs and verified NetShield as one of the world’s fastest, proven virtualised security solution. This test was run on Intel latest servers based on Ice Lake architecture. NetShield proved to scale linearly as the packet inspection demand grows. This kind of linear scalability is needed to keep cybersecurity unbreakable under massive data load for 5G Core security.

The renewed partnership announcement highlights our continued commitment to strengthen the layered defense-in-depth approach of our Managed Security Services. This ensures that MFS is equipped to deliver best-in-class services to our customers. As CSPs continue to evolve their 5G plans, the expanding threat landscape and increasing sophistication of attacks across an end-to-end 5G network, a truly end-to-end and well-integrated network security has become more important than at any other point in the history of telecom. Integrating Clavister Netshield into Nokia’s proven service model based on a wide range of recognized state-of-the-art managed security service offerings, we better serve our customers’ needs and take the critical step with best-in-class managed firewall services”, Vishal Sahay, Head of Managed Security Services, Nokia.

“Nokia is a strategic partner for our 5G security; therefore, I am pleased to renew and deepen this partnership to continue to provide security solutions to the telecommunication market that customers have long come to trust. Nokia has a global footprint that we benefit from and customers, in turn, get the advantage of carrier-grade, 5G-native, European cyber security “, Mats Wenner, Chief Commercial Officer (COO), Clavister.