The Department of Defence has inked a deal with Tier-3 for an enterprise-class version of Huntsman Behaviour Anomoly Detection (BAD) software.

Tier-3 managing director Peter Woollacott said it is a large installation but wouldn't disclose financial details.

Defence Minister Robert Hill said the application is becoming recognized as the next generation in security technology, and it meets Defence's current and predicted needs.

"The new system will map activity across the enterprise and then identify anomalies or any other suspicious activities," Hill said.

"It will then alert and respond to those events enabling immediate investigation and remedial action by security analysts."

Huntsman is planned to be operational towards the end of the year.

Woollacott said Huntsman monitors a system for threats of known and unknown code and is especially useful in detecting zero-day attacks.

"We monitor threats of known and unknown activity. We can detect zero-day attacks," Woollacott said.

"If a terrorist was looking to attack a SCADA facility or a top secret network it is unlikely they will find vulnerabilities on a public Web site - they will invent new code so no matter what signature that code has we [Huntsman] will pick it up as anomalous activity."