Akamai Launches Prolexic Network Cloud Firewall

April 25, 2023 – Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Akamai) (NASDAQ: AKAM), a cloud service provider responsible for supporting and protecting network life, announced the launch of Prolexic Network Cloud Firewall. This is a new feature of Akamai Prolexic that allows customers to define and manage their own access control lists (ACLs), while giving customers greater flexibility in protecting network edge security.

Prolexic is Akamai's cloud-based DDoS protection platform that blocks attacks before they impact applications, data centers, and Internet-facing infrastructure.

DDoS threats are on the rise again, and this trend is accelerating as more and more businesses and organizations rely on online services to operate. As DDoS tools and services become more accessible on the dark web, it has become easier for attackers to launch such attacks. In addition, the increasing number of connected devices and the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) have created a larger attack surface for cybercriminals. Now, more and more attackers are using DDoS attacks as one of the threat vectors in triple extortion attacks, often in conjunction with ransomware and data breach attacks.

Nation-state attackers, hacktivists, and other similar well-organized groups are increasingly incorporating DDoS into their attack mix, targeting a diverse and growing number of targets. In all of these scenarios, DDoS is often used to distract the target from other types of attacks, such as data exfiltration or network penetration. Victims with inadequate DDoS protection often use up all their resources defending against this type of attack, leaving them without the energy or bandwidth to respond to other threats launched simultaneously.

Akamai Prolexic provides DDoS protection services to a wide range of organizations, including enterprises, governments, and non-profits. With a current protection capacity of 20 Tbps and growing, Prolexic can handle even the largest and most complex threats, including recent large-scale DDoS attacks in Asia and Europe, which peaked at record-breaking 900 Gbps and over 700 Mpps, respectively.

Prolexic Network Cloud Firewall can defend against DDoS attacks more efficiently and flexibly, and even extend Prolexic's protection capabilities beyond DDoS.

While the overall Prolexic service and defense stack remain unchanged, the new features enable customers to define and adjust their own access control rules and analyze existing rules. Specific improvements include: customers can define active defenses to quickly block malicious traffic; reduce the pressure on local infrastructure by moving rules to the edge; and quickly adapt to network changes through a new user interface.

“The most requested feature from Prolexic’s customers is the Network Cloud Firewall,” said Sean Lyons, senior vice president and general manager of Akamai’s Infrastructure Security Division. “We’ve expanded Prolexic’s primary DDoS protection capabilities to enable customers to quickly define access control and firewall rules for their entire network in a centralized manner, leveraging the global reach of the Prolexic platform. This is a powerful tool for emergency response, not only for DDoS attacks, but also for scenarios such as zero-day vulnerabilities, where access can be cut off immediately and in a targeted manner. Because we enforce rules at the edge of the customer’s network, customers don’t have to worry about configuring all of their internal firewalls, which can take too long.”

Data Center, Public Cloud, Colocation Facilities No matter where your applications are deployed, Akamai Prolexic protects them by blocking attacks with its cloud-based DDoS scrubbing platform. It provides comprehensive protection against all types of DDoS attacks and defends against persistent, high-bandwidth attacks and today’s sophisticated, multi-vector attacks that move between applications. Prolexic provides proactive defense controls customized to network traffic to block attacks immediately, backed by Akamai’s global Security Operations Command Center (SOCC) that executes proactive defenses 24/7. In addition, Prolexic offers customers a unique 100% uptime service level agreement (SLA).