Smart DNS for the New Network: Optimizing Content Delivery

The presence of public "over the top" DNS resolution alternatives is a strong motivator for ISPs to invest in making their DNS resolution infrastructure the best that it can be. Resolvers are the glue that binds subscribers to their fixed and mobile broadband services. Operators of public DNS...

10 Ways to Protect Against DDoS Attacks

Distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks continue to grow in size, frequency, and complexity, threatening businesses and service providers around the world. A warning was recently issued about a steep uptick of DDoS attack threats demanding bitcoin ransom with thousands of organizations across...

Stopping Active Attacks with Penalty Box

Unfortunately, today's sophisticated web application threats have gained some advantages over typical WAFs: Favorable odds -- WAFs must correctly identify attacks 100% of the time, whereas attackers have the luxury of only needing to find a single bypass or evasion Temporary fixes -- Many WAFs us...

Stopping Active Attacks with Penalty Box

A web application firewall WAF is most often used by organizations for external security controls to detect and block individual attack attempts against target web application assets. Open Web Application Security Project OWASP risk rating methodology Unfortunately, today's sophisticated web...

Smartphones are not the problem with MFA security

We've recently seen big attacks play out on prominent technology companies despite their use of smartphone-based multi-factor authentication. These attacks are real, they do happen, and it appears that even the smartphone cannot protect us anymore. While this conclusion may be tempting, it actual...

The Importance of Feedback Loops with Akamai (Part 1)

The dictionary defines feedback as "The modification or control of a process or system by its results or effects, for example in a biochemical pathway or behavioral response." Let's explore how feedback loops work within Akamai. Feedback involves getting output and inserting it back into the inpu...

Smart DNS: Delivering the Best Subscriber Experience

This is the second in a series of blog posts that discuss how smart DNS resolvers can enhance ongoing network transformation efforts such as the transition to 5G, better integration of Wi-Fi, and new network designs that optimize the edge to improve the subscriber experience, service delivery, an...

Smart DNS: Delivering the Best Subscriber Experience

The presence of public "over-the-top" DNS resolution alternatives is a strong motivator for internet service providers ISPs to invest in making their DNS resolution infrastructure the best that it can be. Resolvers are the glue that binds subscribers to their fixed and mobile broadband services...

Cyberweek 2020 Attracted Both Online Shoppers and DDoS Attackers

2020 has shown both record-busting bps and pps attacks and the most prolific DDoS extortion campaign recorded by Akamai...

How DevOps Tools Can Help Publishers Thrive

Agility has proven to be a key weapon in the publisher arsenal during the pandemic. Agile firms -- particularly news publishers -- that switched directions or added digital services quickly reaped the rewards of new readers and viewers, even if the audience boost didn't result in a similar increa...

Cyberweek 2020 Attracted Both Online Shoppers and DDoS Attackers

As we close out 2020, it should come as no surprise that Cyberweek the week of Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday proved big for DDoS attacks. Threat actors were out in force during this key shopping season, and they shifted their sights toward disrupting digital commerce-related industries. This...

Evading Link Scanning Security Services with Passive Fingerprinting

By Gal Bitensky, Executive Summary Link scanners are a critical component in multiple classes of security products including email security suites, websites that suggest direct inspection of a suspicious link, and others. Behind the scenes, these services use web clients...

The evolution of MFA authentication technology and what needs to change next

Authentication attacks are big business, and no one is immune from them. In fact, two men were recently arrested and charged in the Twitter employee account compromise that happened in July 2020. Using employee account credentials, the attackers took over several highly visible celebrity Twitter...

Don't reward your loyal customers by treating them like criminals!

I am CIAM not IAM Imagine shopping in your favourite wine merchant or checking in to the brand of hotel that you afford the most loyalty, and at the point of self-identification either to prove age or verification security is called over and you are frisked. Not a great experience. Would you...

Can Edge Computing Exist Without the Edge? Part 2: Edge Computing

In part 1 of this series, I drew the architectural distinction between a centralized cloud platform and a distributed edge network. This is an important foundation upon which to explain the difference between cloud computing and edge computing. The two serve very different and complementary...

Can Edge Computing Exist Without the Edge? Part 2: Edge Computing

In part 1 of this series, I drew the architectural distinction between a centralized cloud platform and a distributed edge network. This is an important foundation upon which to explain the difference between cloud computing and edge computing. The two serve very different and complementary...

Phishing Summary 2020—Trends and Highlights

2020 was a challenging year for many of us, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life and introduced challenges in almost all elements of living. 2020 was also challenging from a cybersecurity point of view, as nearly the entire workforce moved...

Distinguishing Among DNS Services Part 2: The Economics

This is Part 2 of a 3-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's DNS services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management. Part 1 focused on Akamai's DNS platform and what sets it apart. In Part 2, we take a closer look at the economics of DNS pricing models and why...

Add Security Events to Your Monitoring Tools

Real-time monitoring is important in every organization because it enables stakeholders to understand what is happening at any given time and react quickly. There are a lot of systems and devices we can and should monitor using tools such as application performance monitoring, digital performance...

Distinguishing Among DNS Services Part 2: The Economics

This is Part 2 of a 3-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's DNS services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management...

Distinguishing Among DNS Services Part 2: The Economics

This is Part 2 of a three-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's Domain Name System DNS services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management...

Cyber Monday - The Biggest Shopping Day of the Year?

Do you remember when Cyber Monday wasn't a thing? In late November 2005, The New York Times reported: "The name Cyber Monday grew out of the observation that millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed...

Using Akamai Edge DNS with PCI DSS Environments

Overview The PCI DSS scoping guidance indicates that common shared services that provide services to the CDE, such as DNS, can be in scope and must be assessed for PCI DSS compliance. This post discusses the application of this scoping guidance to the external authoritative DNS servers and provid...

Understanding Emerging Video Formats

In my previous post, we discussed two new image formats: High-Efficiency Image File HEIF and AV1 Image File AVIF. In this article, we'll take a closer look at two emerging video formats built on the same foundations. Akamai Image & Video Manager IVM already supports the key video codecs H.264,...

Understanding New Image Formats

Akamai Image & Video Manager IVM already supports key modern image types, such as WebP, JPEG 2000, and JPEG XR, but the imaging industry is always evolving and raising the bar on the balance of compression and quality. In addition, creative and development teams are regularly asking about new...

Akamai Foundation and Employee Resource Groups Unite

Written by Kara DiGiacomo, Executive Director, Akamai Foundation and Marco Irizarry, Global Manger, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Responsibility On Giving Tuesday, we celebrate joining others in a global movement to give, collaborate, and transform communities and the world. As we think about h...

Distinguishing Among DNS Services Part 1: The Platform

This is Part 1 of a 3-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's DNS services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management. To begin the series, we focus on Akamai's DNS platform, which was the subject of a technical paper presented at SIGCOMM 2020 this past August. O...

Demonstrate Commitment, Differentiate Services, Develop Opportunities

Everything's mobile -- especially today, when running a business is harder than ever -- and responsiveness is everything. Staying ahead of the curve means workers may need to operate in "always available" mode, relying on their phone for business-related tasks, regardless of where they may be. Th...

Alternatives to Animated GIFs

We have all been amused by animated GIFs on lots of websites -- dancing babies, cute cats, flying birds, funny memes, and countless others. Despite their popularity, animated GIFs can be very heavy and can contribute significantly to page performance issues. How significantly? We have seen...

Two months of Black Fridays?

Black Friday began in the U.S. as a way to funnel Thanksgiving holiday free time into a day of wanton gift shopping. It later spread globally as a retailer promotional blitz to kick off the holiday shopping season. Enter: Black Friday, 2020 style. In early September, many retailers, including Hom...

Distinguishing Among DNS Services Part 1: The Platform

This is Part 1 of a 3-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's DNS services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management...

How did your turkey trot to your home this year?

Despite the fact that I only had two guests for Thanksgiving yesterday, I still cooked enough food for 15 people, and all of the ingredients were ordered online and delivered to my front door by a nice delivery person who we have come to know fairly well over the past six months. 2020 has changed...

What's the point of habitual cookie consent? Analytics?

Last week I read an online post about schoolchildren who are taught in their IT lessons to just accept cookie consent pop-ups when they see them on the screen! That really is the definition of habitual consent. If we think about the intent of consent, it should be informed, unambiguous, and...

Going Beyond Advertising: Revenue Diversification in Publishing

The pandemic has had a profound short-term effect on publishers around the world -- a jump in readership somewhat dampened by disappearing advertising revenue. In many media firms, the digital channel has become most important, accelerating the move to digital while also highlighting the fragilit...

Using LL-HLS with byte-range addressing to achieve interoperability in low latency streaming

Introduction HTTP Adaptive Segmented HAS streaming began to be used at scale from 2008 to 2012, with the advent of Move Networks, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, Apple HLS, Adobe HDS, and MPEG DASH. With the typical 10s segment durations of the day, livestream latencies measuring latency as the time...

Using LL-HLS with Byte-Range Addressing to Achieve Interoperability in Low Latency Streaming

HTTP Adaptive Segmented HAS streaming began to be used at scale from 2008 to 2012, with the advent of Move Networks, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, Apple HLS, Adobe HDS, and MPEG DASH. With the typical 10s segment durations of the day, livestream latencies measuring latency as the time from an actio...

Don't Let DDoS Extortionists Deliver a KO Punch

Since mid-August, a variety of threat actors and copycats alike have been targeting organizations across all industries globally, threatening impending DDoS attacks unless Bitcoin is paid out. It's apparent, as the campaign rages on, that some businesses must be paying the extortion demands, --...

Don't Let DDoS Extortionists Deliver a KO Punch

Since mid-August, a variety of threat actors and copycats alike have been targeting organizations across all industries globally, threatening impending DDoS attacks unless Bitcoin is paid out. It's apparent, as the campaign rages on, that some businesses must be paying the extortion demands, --...

WordPress Malware Setting Up SEO Shops

While recently looking over my honeypots, I discovered an infection where a malicious actor added a storefront on top of my existing WordPress installation. For background, this particular honeypot is a full instance of WordPress running on a Docker image...

Akamai's Technical Enablement and Education Team, Part of the Global Services and Support Organization, Wins Four Gold, Silver, and Bronze "Excellence in Education" Awards

Akamai's Technical Enablement and Education Team won four coveted Brandon Hall Group awards for excellence in learning. Akamai's win was announced on August 20, 2020. The winners are listed on Brandon Hall Group's website. The award-winning team is responsible for creating product training and...

Toward Inclusive Language in Software

Akamai opposes racism in all its forms and is committed to providing an inclusive, fair, and respectful environment for both our customers and our employees. As part of this commitment, we are joining other technology-industry leaders in removing biased, oppressive, and racially insensitive...

Toward Inclusive Language in Software

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It's universal: We all love to exchange gifts. Singles' Day and Diwali are two more reasons to do so.

There is scientific evidence that humans secrete "feel good" chemicals in their brain, such as serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin, while giving. So it's no wonder that many of us look forward to the holidays. Online mobile shopping trends for Singles' Day and Diwali certainly confirm that. Sadly,...

Safeguard Identity Data at the Source

Leverage Identity Cloud's built-in tooling to safeguard your customers' data from unnecessary exposure When your customers create an account on your website or application, they are entrusting their valuable information with you in order to establish a relationship. To maintain that relationship,...

Online Shoppers Undeterred by COVID as Holiday Shopping Season Shifts Earlier

Akamai-Commissioned Survey Hints at Significant Business Consequences If Online Retail Experiences Do Not Meet Consumer Expectations Holiday shoppers are overcoming worries and restrictions and easily adapting to new shopping norms as the COVID-19 pandemic has invaded our lives and made us...

The dangers of firewall misconfigurations

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Safeguard Identity Data at the Source

When your customers create an account on your website or application, they are entrusting their valuable information with you in order to establish a relationship. To maintain that relationship, they need to have faith that you will protect their information...

HTTP/3: Ready to Land

Hi, my name is Mike Bishop; I'm the editor of the newest version of HTTP, HTTP/3. I'm part of Foundry, a team at Akamai that focuses on new and emerging technologies that will impact the future of the web. I've been involved in web standards since the early days of HTTP/2, and most of my work has...

Akamai Wellness in APJ

Creating the world's best and most secure digital experience demands the very best industry talent. But as a responsible employer, we also understand how important it is to play our part in looking after those brilliant minds...

Redundant, Secure, and Open Short Domains: A Vision for Multi-Provider Apex Domain Aliases to Enable DNS Diversity

Human nature is to seek simpler and convenient ways to do things. One example is the sometimes onerous task of typing a URL into a web browser's address bar. Since users prefer short, easy-to-remember URLs, an internet trend is to use short domains for websites e.g., edgedns.zone. With short...