The Akamai Blog

When we write the SOTI and talk about attacks against gamers, we spend a good deal of time focusing on network-level events, such as DDoS and credential stuffing.

In this blog, we will take a look at and break down a recent Magecart attack detected and mitigated by Client-Side Protection & Compliance. The impacted customer operates a large international e-commerce business in which one of its websites was compromised with a malicious script.

Never before has the risk of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack been higher. In 2020, we saw record-breaking attacks, a DDoS extortion campaign impacting thousands of organizations globally, more emergency customer turnups, and more Akamai customers attacked than any year on record -- and we've been successfully fighting DDoS attacks since 2003! We also saw a big increase in attacks targeting verticals that haven't seen as much activity of late, with 7 of 11 of the industries we track seeing peak attack counts in 2020.

I recently worked with a client whose large e-commerce site was hosted with a popular cloud-based commerce solution. Its business was growing rapidly into new geographic markets, and it was not satisfied with the embedded content delivery network (eCDN) that was bundled with the cloud solution. We demonstrated that stacking CDNs -- adding Akamai's Ion solution on top of the eCDN -- could significantly improve performance as well as provide the client with much greater control over its delivery configuration

Over the past 20 years, we've seen a lot of growth at Akamai. When I started at Akamai, we used to have traffic peaks of almost 200 Mbps. From that fledgling startup, Akamai has now grown to such a scale that we almost doubled network capacity in 2020 and were able to serve peaks of almost 200 Tbps. In short, just like the internet, Akamai has undergone quite the evolution. But as we've grown, so have our environmental impacts. In fact, the internet as a whole is responsible for more than 2% of global emissions, having the same impact as the airline industry. Our online streaming, learning, working, shopping, and playing habits have all started to add up.

Last year proved to be a year like no other. We faced unforeseen challenges, including adjusting to a new way of working, collaborating, and conducting business. It is an honor for me to announce the Akamai Partners of the Year for 2020 who went above and beyond in this tumultuous year. These awards recognize Akamai Partner Program (APP) partners that consistently delivered significant sales successes, innovative solution partnerships, and unequaled service levels as they adapted to the new norm of digital transformation.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard “unprecedented” in 2020, I could fund a clean energy project myself. And while we're tired of hearing this term, it's true amid the pandemic, U.S. presidential election, social justice movements, finalization of Brexit, and many other new and life-changing events that took place this past year.

Live news streaming traffic during the Biden inauguration ceremony on January 20 peaked at 12 Tbps on the Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform. The peak, which occurred as now-President Biden was taking the oath of office just before 12 PM ET, is roughly 8x higher than what we typically see for mid-day traffic on a weekday. However, it's still less than the 18 Tbps we observed during 2020 election night on November 3.

If you turned on a new game console and/or downloaded video games over the holidays, you certainly weren't alone. New data from Akamai shows that game-related traffic delivered across our network was more than double the Q4 average on December 25, and up nearly 50% on December 26. During the same period, traffic for all other industries combined was relatively even compared to the rest of the quarter.

While I've worked for Silicon Valley-based startups and even spent time in the travel tech industry, I'd sometimes feel I was just part of the system. Working each day to earn my keep, and with no bigger purpose than that.

Check out these features around segmentation and visibility that can help working with Guardicore Centra even simpler.

What if you had a single solution that was able to detect non-compliant and high-risk endpoints and servers, assess their level of exposure, and then immediately secure these servers and endpoints with laser-sharp segmentation policies?

In today's workplace, the landscape is a fast-paced, competitive environment, and today's employees are frequently on the hunt for growth opportunities.

Emotet malware has been around since 2014, but 2020 saw a resurgence of attacks. In September 2020, Emotet affected 14% of organizations worldwide. So, what is Emotet? And why is it so dangerous?

At Akamai, we all contribute to our diverse, inclusive, and engaged culture. One in which we each have a voice and are empowered to have a meaningful impact on our business and its direction. It's by fostering this culture across teams that we're able to achieve the company's guiding principles. For all of us, it means putting our clients, employees and communities front and center in our daily work.

As I reflect on 2020 and the way in which the pandemic affected the business world, what stands out to me is the incredible increase in streaming content consumed on the internet. We've seen launches of some of the highest-profile streaming services to date between late 2019 and 2020. People are continuously streaming content and we need to consider the impact that increased viewership is having on the world. When you sit down to catch a movie or binge watch that latest series, do you consider the effect that streamed content has on the rest of the world? We will continue to see an uptick in carbon emissions from the power required to serve online content: servers, network hardware, and the energy needed to keep it all cool.

At long last, Blue Water Farm is generating revenue! Around 20 acres of our land consists of dense, mature hardwood of oak, maple, and beech, and we were able to contract to sell 65 maple and 25 oak trees to a logging company. I won't be retiring from Akamai any time soon from our logging windfall, but it's nice to see some revenue from our land, and clearing mature trees is a part of good responsible forest management.

On October 2020, the Akamai Technical Enablement and Education (TE&E) Team -- responsible for creating product-training certifications for employees (Global Services and Support [GSS]), customers (Akamai University), and channel partners (Advanced Partner Enablement) -- won its second industry award for program design, functionality, and impact.

In terms of cyberthreats and digital risk, 2020 has been all about distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

This blog post -- the fourth in a series -- will discuss how smart DNS resolvers can enhance ongoing ISP and MNO network transformation efforts, such as the transition to 5G, better integration of Wi-Fi, and new network designs that optimize the edge to improve service delivery and network efficiency.