The Akamai Blog

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.

We introduce a novel machine learning approach that uses network flows to generate application-level representation of public and private cloud networks. This will greatly simplify the journey to a micro-segmented network.

So, you're starting your own game studio. This is an incredible opportunity! You and your team get to start fresh and build the game of your dreams! But, let's be honest, if you have just founded your own game studio, odds are that you're not a technical architect. You may have some technical know-how, but studio founders typically come from the creative side.

Microservice architecture has transformed the way we develop and operate our applications. Microservices aren't a technology or a programming language. Instead, they create a structure for designing and building applications based on the idea that the individual functions of a website should operate independently. From this simple concept comes a multitude of benefits including:

The presence of public "over the top" DNS resolution alternatives is a strong motivator for ISPs to invest in making their DNS resolution infrastructure the best that it can be. Resolvers are the glue that binds subscribers to their fixed and mobile broadband services. Operators of public DNS services will play a significant role in controlling the user experience and gain goodwill if they succeed in persuading subscribers to use their resolvers. Worse, when public DNS services fail, it's probable that subscribers will blame their service provider because they may not understand the critical role DNS plays, or may not even remember they switched their DNS settings!

Unfortunately, today's sophisticated web application threats have gained some advantages over typical WAFs: Favorable odds -- WAFs must correctly identify attacks 100% of the time, whereas attackers have the luxury of only needing to find a single bypass or evasion Temporary fixes -- Many WAFs use a "whack-a-mole" response tactic by only denying the individual attack request, allowing the attacker to make repeated attempts Persistence -- If left unimpeded, attackers may eventually find some type of payload obfuscation that minimizes detection effectiveness The confluence of these advantages should concern WAF customers. Let's take a closer look at the typical web attacker methodology to see why.

The presence of public "over-the-top" DNS resolution alternatives is a strong motivator for internet service providers (ISPs) to invest in making their DNS resolution infrastructure the best that it can be. Resolvers are the glue that binds subscribers to their fixed and mobile broadband services.