Akamai Rolls Out Software-Defined DDoS Scrubbing Centers

Akamai booth

With the worldwide rollout of new, entirely software-defined scrubbing centers, Akamai Technologies has announced a substantial update of its DDoS protection platform, Prolexic. It will extend Akamai’s dedicated defensive capacity to 20 Tbps while accelerating future product improvements.

The move would enable Akamai Prolexic to defend organizations against the biggest, multi-terabit assaults. In the wake of more complex and record-setting DDoS attacks, it would offer great performance and reliability for online companies of any size, anywhere in the world.

To avoid interruptions for end users or networks, Akamai’s new and extra internationally dispersed DDoS scrubbing centers monitor incoming traffic, spot risks, and eliminate malicious activity. The centers would provide quick installations for capacity extension, enhanced regional coverage, and increased redundancy because they are totally software-defined.

During the initial deployment, which starts in Q3 2022 and continues in 2023, additional DDoS scrubbing centers are installed throughout all main areas, including North America (US-East/West, Canada), Europe (Italy, Spain, Switzerland), Asia (India, Japan, Hong Kong), and the Middle East.

DDoS Protection

Sean Lyons, SVP and GM of Infrastructure Security at Akamai
“Akamai’s DDoS defense evolves even faster and will always be many steps ahead of the latest threats,” said Sean Lyons, SVP and GM of Infrastructure Security at Akamai.

DDoS attacks are evolving quickly, putting organizations at significant risk if they lack the necessary countermeasures, stated Akamai. Since 2020, businesses have faced an onslaught of DDoS extortion, high-profile multi-terabit assaults, hacktivism, and a proliferation of new threats, the company added. The demand on security personnel to fight against a growing arsenal of increasingly sophisticated threats would likewise be enormous. The top five DDoS attack vectors in 2010 accounted for 90% of all attacks, but the top five in 2016 only accounted for 55%, according to Akamai.

“DDoS attacks are innovating at an unprecedented rate, but our customers can rest assured that Akamai’s DDoS defense evolves even faster and will always be many steps ahead of the latest threats,” said Sean Lyons, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Infrastructure Security at Akamai. “This platform advancement drastically accelerates our time to market and will enable us to deliver new cybersecurity innovations with greater frequency. In addition, our extension of defense capacity, regional presence and next generation scrubbing centers further strengthens our ability to mitigate all types and volumes of attacks. And by bringing DDoS protection even closer to our customers, they know they can rely on Akamai to deliver unmatched security without impacting latency and end user experience.”

Whether applications are placed in a regular data center, the public cloud, or a colocation facility, Akamai Prolexic thwarts attacks with a cloud-based DDoS scrubbing platform. It would offer thorough defense against the widest variety of DDoS attack types, stop persistent high-bandwidth attacks, and protect today’s sophisticated multi-vector attacks that switch across applications.