Superior IT security prevents cybercrime and data breaches — and the devastating impact they can have on organizations. Security solutions can help to prevent the loss of data, theft of finances, and damage to a company’s reputation. By implementing a multilayered approach to IT security, companies can also protect their users, customers, partners, and vendors from cyberattacks.
The key to information technology security: a multilayered defense
Cybercriminals are constantly finding new and better ways to attack your digital ecosystem. From devastating ransomware, malware, and business email compromise (BEC) campaigns to phishing schemes, compromised credentials, and zero-day attacks on web apps and APIs, the number of security threats seems to grow larger by the day.
As businesses become increasingly interconnected and computer systems rely more heavily on cloud infrastructure, a good defense requires a multilayered approach that covers your entire ecosystem. Yet managing multiple point solutions is a costly and complex endeavor that can quickly drain IT security budgets — and hinder business agility and speed.
Akamai can help. Our comprehensive portfolio of cybersecurity solutions surrounds and protects your entire ecosystem — clouds, apps, APIs, and users — to keep your business safe from security risks, without slowing down.
The challenge of IT security in an evolving threat landscape
When managing IT security, your teams must develop strategies to protect every element of your attack surface.
- Web applications. Botnets, denial-of-service attacks, and web application attacks can quickly shut down websites and web applications. When these assets are essential for operations, successful attacks can have an outsized impact on your business.
- APIs. Your APIs are essential to business agility, collaboration, and competitiveness. But they also extend your attack surface, offering cybercriminals even more opportunities to gain illegitimate access to your network.
- Data centers. The critical infrastructure assets in your data center may be corrupted, stolen, or disrupted by denial-of-service attacks, malicious software, and attacks like ransomware campaigns that use lateral movement to spread undetected within the network perimeter.
- DNS services. Your domain name system (DNS) services are vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks, forgery, and manipulation. Protecting DNS (link to https://www.akamai.com/products/edge-dns) services is essential to ensuring they are trustworthy, fast, and available, so that visitors can always find your websites and applications.
- Employees. Despite your continued efforts to increase awareness of security measures, your employees are the weakest links in your security defenses. Sophisticated phishing and social engineering attacks may dupe them into sharing sensitive information, revealing credentials, or downloading malicious files.
IT security with Akamai
Akamai Security Operations Command Center (SOCC)
Akamai cyberthreat security solutions provide protection for your entire attack surface. Our technologies are backed by hundreds of expert threat researchers who analyze 300 TB of attack data every day, turning it into built-in intelligence and automated protection against growing threats. Deployed on a global platform that extends from applications and infrastructure to the user, Akamai security solutions stop attacks in the cloud and at the network edge — before they can jeopardize applications and infrastructure.
Akamai IT security solutions provide end-to-end protection to defend against a wide range of multi-vector attacks. Our technology covers your entire ecosystem, providing comprehensive protection for multiple areas of IT security.
- Zero Trust security. Stop lateral movement and secure critical IT assets with tools to visualize and segment assets in the data center, cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure. Strengthen authentication processes and protect employee accounts from data breaches with phish-proof multi-factor authentication. Safely connect users and devices to the internet with a secure web gateway. Scale remote access while avoiding slow, clunky VPNs.
- API and application security. Rely on one-stop, zero-compromise security for applications, websites, and APIs. Count on highly secure DNS services for nonstop availability of web apps and APIs. Defend your websites from client-side threats by spotting and blocking malicious activity.
- Account takeover protection. Stop the most dangerous, evasive bots before they erode customer trust. Prevent account takeover with data protections that keep fraudsters out and trust intact. Reduce friction for customers as they register, authenticate, or sign in — to deliver a seamless, personalized user experience.
- DDoS protection. Stop DDoS attacks with the fastest, most effective incident response at scale.
Stay ahead of threats with Akamai Managed Security Service
To keep your websites, computer networks, apps, APIs, and users safe, your IT security teams need deep expertise and world-class technology. Akamai Managed Security Service (MSS) provides both.
Your MSS team will map a security strategy to your business needs, integrating industry expertise and best practices all backed by the global scale of Akamai Connected Cloud. Our proactive monitoring of security events enables early threat detection, while advisory reporting produces threat intelligence for actionable insights. If your company experiences an attack, our team of experienced security engineers will help implement the appropriate responses to mitigate active threats quickly.
Security diligence is essential in an ever-changing threat landscape. Your MSS team will regularly update risk management and security configurations to maintain the highest levels of protection. Our security experts also support Akamai IT security solutions that can scale to prevent large distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, block harmful bot activity, and detect and mitigate script vulnerabilities.
With managed IT security services from Akamai, you can:
- Minimize risk by relying on a single, comprehensive managed service for your security strategy and integrated security solutions
- Detect threats earlier with proactive monitoring of behavioral anomalies
- Scale an expertly crafted defense with 24/7 access to the Akamai Security Operations Command Center (SOCC)
- Mitigate ransomware, zero-day, and advanced persistent threats faster with unified insights and operational efficiencies from our global SOCC
- Reduce your attack surface with security intelligence based on in-depth analysis, assessments, and enhanced advisory reporting
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
IT security encompasses strategies, programs, and technology that are designed to prevent unauthorized access to information technology assets such as computers, networks, and data. IT security is intended to stop hackers from getting inside an organization’s IT ecosystem, and to prevent insiders from accidentally or maliciously exposing data, revealing credentials, or downloading harmful malware. IT security may encompass a variety of initiatives, including network security, cloud security, application security, and endpoint security.
The core principles of information security are confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Confidentiality protects data from unauthorized access or disclosure. Integrity protects data from unauthorized or accidental modification. Availability ensures that authorized users can access data when needed.
IT security and infosec are both terms used to describe the practice of protecting networks, systems, and data from malicious attacks. The difference between the two is that IT security focuses on protecting an organization’s IT infrastructure, while infosec focuses on protecting the organization’s information assets.
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.