The Akamai Blog

A recent piece of malware from a known crypto mining botnet campaign has started leveraging Bitcoin blockchain transactions in order to hide its backup C2 IP address. It's a simple, yet effective, way to defeat takedown attempts.

I remember well my first day as a member of Akamai's InfoSec department. The Friday prior, I'd just completed the Akamai Technical Academy, a five-month crash-course in all things tech, and was now, on a cold but sunny Monday morning, joining InfoSec for their weekly staff meeting. Eager to make a good first impression, I took a seat at the large, crowded conference table, opened my notebook, and started to take notes.

On 14 July, 2020, Oliver Hough, a security researcher from Cyjax, published a report centered on a phishing campaign targeting banking customers in the United Kingdom, which evades two-factor authentication (2FA).

Do the math. For the past decade, digital businesses have been investing in digital transformation initiatives. The promise is to increase top-line growth while maximizing customer lifetime value. As infrastructure improves, IT spending is shifting from the cloud to the edge. But while edge computing makes headlines, can you expect a meaningful return?

The work of creating the most inclusive and diverse organization is never-ending. While that may seem daunting to some, I see it as exhilarating. Sure, I say that from the perspective of VP! But at Akamai, Inclusion, Diversity, & Engagement (ID&E) is a set of habits that belong to us all, and it's a commitment we should proudly share.

It's not news that some of the top government agencies and companies in the world were victims of the SolarWinds attack. At this point, I can say it's the reason I didn't have a smoother transition back into work-life following a long vacation. As I understand it, the breaches happened after malicious code was inserted into a software patch that was downloaded by the companies and agencies. The installation of the patch executed malicious code, called SUNBURST, which created an entry point for other malicious codes (TEARDROP/RAINDROP). These additional codes were used to allow attackers to move laterally within the network and exfiltrate sensitive customer information to a public command and control server.

It's 2021, but the anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is very much alive today.

Account takeovers (ATOs), in which criminals impersonate legitimate account owners in order to take control of an account, cause tremendous pain for businesses in all industries. This pain may be monetary, such as losses from stolen accounts, but may also include a number of related problems, like regulatory and legal issues, lost customers, and the inability to gain new consumers due to a lack of trust. Losses from ATOs and new account fraud are estimated at more than $10 billion annually in the United States alone.

IPCdump allows software based firewall developers, researchers, and linux users to explore the Inter-process-communication (IPC) channels.

It's a lot of fun to imagine and design the best team. As managers, it's rare that we get to build a team from the ground up and all at once.

Thanks to the unique perspectives we have via the Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform, we're able to observe massive amounts of web traffic and data that provide insights across the various industries Akamai serves. In the wake of Super Bowl LV, we're sharing some observations on gambling traffic and social media activity, two categories that are complementary to the game. We'll also look at how online viewing has increased over the past 10 years of live streaming the

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to extend the local WiFi in my home to reach all the floors. The goal was to have full connectivity from every location in the house.

Phishing continues to be a major attack vector, and it's surprising just how many security incidents and breaches start with an employee clicking on a link in a carefully crafted phishing email (and sometimes doing the same with a not-so-well crafted phishing email -- see this example).

The beginning of a new year is a time to look back and reflect on the previous one. December 31st is also the end date of our annual Krakow Internship Program.

Cloudlets Policy Manager often takes a long time to load, which is a by-product of its original design where every policy activation is an individual file. These files must be moved around the network, and as you might imagine, transferring thousands of files in a multi-tenant network can take a very long time. Add a synchronous API to this problem, and we quickly get into a situation where the Policy Manager UI can freeze until a back-end transfer operation times out.

DigiGirlz is an initiative organized by Microsoft to engage girls in technological education and careers. The initiative, which launched in 2000, consists of two main programs: DigiGirlz Day and High Tech Camp. This program has been a cornerstone of Microsoft's community engagement for more than 20 years, but this year the events were in jeopardy of being cancelled because of the pandemic. So, what do you do when your passion for helping others meets a challenge? You do what Microsoft does so well -- you innovate!

Isn't it amazing how seemingly simple decisions can have far-reaching effects? When the Inverse team in Montreal took over PacketFence in 2008, it was an open source (OS) solution.

Akamai is committed to collaboration that inspires worldwide change. We know it's not enough to be environmentally conscious solely in our own business. To make a true impact on climate change, we need to use our unique position as a global corporation to encourage our partners to join us in taking sustainable action, participating in community improvement projects, and engaging in climate education. We need to consider the question:

Author: Mark Porter, Director, Supply Chain & International Collaboration, Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA) Mark Porter moved to REBA from Rocky Mountain Institute's Business Renewables Center (BRC) initiative in March 2019. Mark continues to support the BRC initiative across all areas and grow REBA's membership. He is developing initiatives to support supply chain engagement and international collaboration between NGOs acting in this space worldwide.

This is Part 3 of a 3-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's authoritative DNS services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management. Part 1 focused on Akamai's DNS platform and what sets it apart. Part 2...