Security pros should architect their networks the way cybercrooks build botnets, with command-and-control servers for individual segments within the outer perimeter, says AT&T Chief Security Officer Ed Amoroso.

"You take a page out of the botnet designer’s handbook," Amoroso said Tuesday at the International Conference on Cyber Security in New York City, in remarks reported by Politico. "It looks like a botnet."

Network virtualization is key to the segmentation approach to network security, Amoroso said last month in an interview with Light Reading.

"Virtualization allows you to essentially shrink wrap protections around applications, hypervisors, even whole networks," he said at the time. "That give you an added layer of protection to whatever you have now."

AT&T plans to virtualize 75 percent of its network within the next five years, senior executive John Donovan wrote in a company blog post last month.

Donovan oversees the carrier's Domain 2.0 program, which aims to reduce capital spending by focusing on virtualization and open source software. Donovan mentioned collaborations with OpenStack, On.Lab, the OpenDaylight Project, and OPNFV.

"We’re planning to kick our transition to a software-centric network into high gear in 2015," Donovan wrote.