Security To Stay In The Forefront

With large-scale security breaches staying front and center in the news, carriers -- the keepers of Internet infrastructure -- will continue to regard security as a high-stakes issue in 2017.

In 2016, security vendors, including Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet, rolled out offerings specifically for telecom service providers. Many of the large security vendors are starting to focus on carriers as a customer segment, but it's been slow-going. In recent years, telecom providers have become a popular target for hackers. As these providers continue to keep security front of mind and bake it into their cloud-based offerings and data centers, carriers could be looking to security vendors for high-end network security firewalls.