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What Is Cyberthreat Security?

The evolving challenge of cyberthreat security

Many cyberthreat security solutions today are designed to detect and block a single type of attack. As a result, organizations frequently adopt a variety of point solutions to mitigate threats like ransomware, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, credential stuffing, phishing, and SQL injection.

However, threat actors are increasingly employing multiple techniques, mixing different types of attacks in coordinated campaigns. These multidimensional attacks have a higher chance of succeeding against organizations with limited IT resources and against solutions that are focused on a single type of cyberthreat security. In addition, hackers may combine bandwidth-consuming DDoS attacks with SQL injection and other attack vectors, using the noisy DDoS campaign to cover their true goal of data or financial theft.

Clearly, cyberthreat security solutions that focus on just one type of attack vector will not be as effective as technologies that can respond to a variety of potential attacks at once. That’s why Akamai offers comprehensive security solutions that enable a multilayered and unified approach to enterprise security.

The vast scope of cyberthreat security

To prevent cybercrime, your cyberthreat security programs must defend every aspect of your IT ecosphere.

  • Employees. Many of the most damaging breaches originate with an employee error. Your cybersecurity programs must take every step possible to prevent employees from falling prey to phishing campaigns or accidentally taking steps that enable malicious files or malware to be downloaded.
  • Customers. Your customers’ trust relies on how successfully you protect their personally identifiable information, account balances, and transaction details.
  • Enterprise applications and data. As the traditional network perimeter disappears, your cybersecurity solutions must enable secure access to enterprise applications while protecting end users from advanced threats.
  • Web applications. When your websites are business-critical assets, successful attacks can cripple operations, drive down revenue, and damage reputation. Protecting your website and web applications from denial-of-service attacks, bot attacks, injection, and other cyberattacks is critical.
  • APIs. APIs are essential to business communication, collaboration, and agility. They also increase the size of your attack surface. APIs must be protected just as web applications should, but they require different types of defenses.
  • Data centers. The IT assets in your data centers are connected to every aspect of business operations. To prevent malicious actors from stealing sensitive information, downloading malware, or launching ransomware attacks, your cyberthreat security programs must detect and mitigate attacks that have landed successfully and are moving laterally in search of high-value targets.
  • DNS services. Domain Name System (DNS) services ensure that users can access your websites and applications. Protecting DNS from manipulation, forgery, and denial-of-service attacks is essential to availability, speed, and customer trust.
Image showing a team of security experts working in Akamai’s Security Operations Command Center Akamai Security Operations Command Center (SOCC)

Simplify cyberthreat security with Akamai

Akamai’s best-in-class security solutions routinely earn top rankings in multiple categories from major industry analysts. Over the past number of years, we’ve grown from a security portfolio of point solutions into a comprehensive platform that delivers unified defenses for customers who want the most effective security capabilities from fewer vendors.

Today, our cyberthreat security offerings include:

  • Managed Security Service (MSS) provides access to experienced security analysts and proven online defenses to help achieve a stronger security posture. Our fully managed solution integrates proactive monitoring, advisory reporting, threat detection, fast incident response, periodic tuning, and dedicated security experts in a service with the scale to protect your organization against the largest, most sophisticated threats and the latest attack vectors.
  • DDoS protection. We offer the largest DDoS mitigation platform with proven technology that stops thousands of attacks every month, including some of the largest attacks the internet has ever seen.
  • Web application firewall. Our industry-leading WAF solution protects web applications with zero impact on performance and with adaptive rules that keep up with the latest cybersecurity threats, including SQL injection and zero-day attacks.
  • Bot management. We can help you implement a more effective bot strategy to keep scrapers under control, mitigate credential stuffing, and allow the good bots in while stopping bad bots where they first make contact.
  • In-browser threat protection. With Akamai, you can detect and stop web skimming, formjacking, and other in-browser attacks that can lead to data breaches.
  • Identity protection. Our SaaS-based solution lets customers create personal accounts on any device while protecting their information and your business from risk.
  • Zero Trust Network Access. Our platform provides simple, secure remote access that is easy to manage and provides better security while delivering an exceptional user experience.
  • Segmentation. Our segmentation technology provides the fastest way to visualize and segment critical assets in your on-premises data center, cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure. Granular security controls limit the lateral movement that malicious actors like ransomware rely on.
  • Threat intelligence and research. Akamai Hunt is a managed threat hunting service that finds and remediates the most evasive security risks in your environment. It is led by security experts from Akamai’s threat intelligence and analytics teams — and utilizes the data gathered from Akamai Guardicore Segmentation — to search for threats in your network, find and virtually patch vulnerabilities, and harden your infrastructure.
  • DNS. Our technology delivers fast DNS resolution to improve user experiences and ensures DNS availability by providing access to thousands of DNS servers worldwide.
  • Secure web gateway. Our cloud-based secure web gateway delivers security, control, and visibility to proactively protect users accessing the internet no matter where they are connecting from or which device they’re using.
  • Multi-factor authentication. Our phish-proof FIDO2-based MFA service delivers the highest level of security while providing a frictionless user experience with a smartphone push, eliminating the need for costly and cumbersome physical security keys.

Advantages of Akamai security solutions

Akamai cyberthreat security solutions are situated between your ecosystem and potential attackers to stop attacks in the cloud, at the network edge, closer to attackers, and before they can reach applications and infrastructure. Our technologies offer:

  • Massive scale. We stop the largest direct attacks and insulate you from collateral damage with solutions built on our unmatched scale and global distribution.
  • Global protection. Protect your most critical assets deployed anywhere in the world in data centers, public cloud, or multicloud environments.
  • Real-time support. We offer a single point of contact for support and real-time incident response.
  • Integrated solutions. Our comprehensive solutions are designed to work together to improve mitigation and simplify security while enabling administrators to manage cyberthreat security from a single pane of glass.
  • Increased attack visibility. Our web-based portal improves visibility into attacks and enhances policy control. High-level dashboards let you drill down into different areas of concern.
  • Simplified management. Our Managed Security Service eliminates the need for your teams to deploy physical appliances or software solutions on their own. With Akamai, you can automate changes to configurations by integrating your application development lifecycle with our management APIs.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Cyberthreat security encompasses the practices, programs, protocols, and technologies that companies and their security teams use to protect their IT ecosystems from attack by cybercriminals.

The threat landscape today is constantly evolving, with new threats and attack vectors emerging each month. Among the most dangerous cyberthreats today are ransomware attacks, vulnerability exploitation, phishing attacks and spear-phishing campaigns, and malware attacks designed to steal money, sensitive data, and intellectual property.

Managed security services are a suite of services offered by a third-party provider to help an organization monitor and manage its security posture. They provide organizations with a comprehensive approach to security, enabling them to identify potential threats, detect malicious activity, and respond to incidents quickly and effectively.

Threat hunting is the proactive process of searching or hunting through networks or systems to identify malicious activity and threats that have evaded detection by traditional security solutions. It involves manually searching through millions of security logs and events to identify those that indicate malicious activity or threats.

Why customers choose Akamai

Akamai powers and protects life online. Leading companies worldwide choose Akamai to build, deliver, and secure their digital experiences — helping billions of people live, work, and play every day. Akamai Connected Cloud, a massively distributed edge and cloud platform, puts apps and experiences closer to users and keeps threats farther away.

Explore all Akamai security solutions