The "smart Internet security" software, developed in conjunction with start-up IntelliGuard IT, will also target cyber criminals and organized crime syndicates that crash Internet business Web sites.

IntelliGuard IT's CEO Philip Mulley said the company's approach to securing Internet services is unlike any security offering available today, because most security products are static - like a firewall or antivirus software - and need the problem to come to them.

"Static tools recognize bad data, but this technology goes looking for problems that may be in the process of occurring, for example, before a denial of service attack there may be a reconnaissance attack," Mulley said. "Our technology will recognize this and also distinguish between good customer-related data and attack data, even during a massive denial of service attack."

Mulley, formerly Cisco's general manager of network and information security, said the software is highly intuitive, intelligent, and will make decisions on the "goodness and badness" of data.

Only known as "Intelliguard", the as-yet nameless security appliance is likely to appear at the end of the year in the form of an appliance for carriers through to the enterprise edge.