Akamai Releases Second Quarter 2013 ‘State of the Internet’ Report

- Quarter is first in which half of all connections to Akamai occurred at 4 Mbps or higher
- Observed attack traffic originating from Indonesia nearly doubled quarter-over-quarter
- More than 752 million unique IP addresses connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform

Kuala Lumpur – October 21, 2013 – Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, today released its Second Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as network connectivity and connection speeds, attack traffic, and broadband adoption and availability, among many others.

The Second Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report includes insights into attacks for which a group calling itself Syrian Electronic Army has claimed responsibility, as well observations on Akamai traffic activity due to Internet disruptions in Sudan and Syria. The report also reviews mobile browser usage by network type based on data from Akamai IO.

Highlights from Akamai’s Second Quarter, 2013 Sate of the Internet Report:

Global Average and Peak Connection Speeds

Global average peak connection speeds increased slightly during the second quarter of 2013, up 0.1 percent to 18.9 Mbps. Among the top 10 countries/regions that saw higher average peak connection speeds in the quarter, increases ranged from 3.1 percent in Japan (to 48.8 Mbps) to 22 percent in Taiwan (to 39.5 Mbps).  Hong Kong continued to maintain the number one ranking at 65.1 Mbps, and South Korea crossed the 50 Mbps threshold, coming in second at 53.3 Mbps.

Year-over-year, global average peak connection speeds continued to demonstrate solid growth, rising 17 percent. Yearly growth rates among the top 10 countries ranged from 14 percent in South Korea to 61 percent in both Singapore and Taiwan. Around the rest of the world, all but six qualifying countries/regions saw yearly growth in average peak connection speeds, ranging from 8.5 percent in Bermuda (to 13.4 Mbps) to increases of more than 200 percent in Bahrain (284 percent to 40.3 Mbps) and Iraq (274 percent to 27.3 Mbps).

Quarter-over-quarter, the global average connection speed rose 5.2 percent to 3.3 Mbps (up from 3.1 Mbps). A total of 129 countries/regions that qualified for inclusion saw average connection speeds increase in the second quarter, ranging from 0.1 percent in Bulgaria (to 6.7 Mbps) to 93 percent in Sudan (to 2.1 Mbps).

Year-over-year, average connection speeds were up 9.2 percent, with nine of the top 10 countries/regions demonstrating positive growth of more than 10 percent. Worldwide, 127 qualifying countries/regions saw a year-over-year increase in average connection speeds, ranging from 0.6 percent in Argentina (to 2 Mbps) to 262 percent in Côte d’Ivoire (to 1.6 Mbps).

Global high broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption rose to 14 percent thanks to a 13-percent quarter-over-quarter increase. Global broadband (>4 Mbps) improved 11 percent on the quarter, and Q2 2013 marked the first time that half of all connections to Akamai from around the world took place at speeds of at least 4 Mbps.

Attack Traffic and Security

Akamai maintains a distributed set of unadvertised agents deployed across the Internet that log connection attempts, which the company classifies as attack traffic. Based on the data collected by these agents, Akamai is able to identify the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks. It is important to note, however, that the originating country as identified by the source IP address may not represent the nation in which an attacker resides. For example, an individual in the United States may be launching attacks from compromised systems anywhere in the world.

In the second quarter, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 175 unique countries/regions, two fewer than was observed in the first quarter of 2013. Indonesia pushed China out of the top spot this quarter, nearly doubling its first-quarter traffic from 21 percent to 38 percent, while China moved to second at 33 percent (down from 34 percent). The United States remained in third even after dropping to 6.9 percent in the second quarter from 8.3 percent in the first quarter.

The top 10 countries/regions generated 89 percent of observed attacks, up from 82 percent in the previous quarter. Like the first quarter, Indonesia and China again originated more than half of the total observed attack traffic.

For the first time since the inaugural State of the Internet Report (first quarter of 2008), Port 445 (Microsoft-DS) was not the most targeted port for attacks, dropping to third place at 15 percent, behind Port 443 (SSL [HTTPS], 17 percent) and Port 80 (WWW [HTTP], 24 percent). The vast majority (90 percent) of attacks targeting Ports 80 and 443 originated from Indonesia, up from 80 percent last quarter. Indonesia was observed to originate the majority of attacks targeting Ports 80 and 443, up to 90 percent from last quarter’s 80 percent.

In addition to observations on attack traffic, the State of the Internet Report includes insight into distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks based on reports from Akamai customers. In the second quarter of 2013, Akamai customers reported 318 attacks, a 54 percent increase over the 208 reported in the first quarter. At 134 reported attacks, the Enterprise sector continued to be the leading target of DDoS attacks, followed by Commerce (91), Media & Entertainment (53), High Tech (23) and Public Sector (17).

Also, a group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) claimed responsibility for several attacks against news and media companies during the second quarter of 2013. The attacks all employed similar spear-phishing tactics in which internal email accounts were compromised and leveraged to collect credentials to gain access to targets’ Twitter feeds, RSS feeds and other sensitive information.

Global Internet Penetration

More than 752 million unique IPv4 addresses from 242 unique countries/regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, a 2 percent quarter-over-quarter increase and 13 percent more than the second quarter of 2012. Since a single IP address can represent multiple individuals in some cases – such as when users access the Web through a firewall or proxy server – Akamai estimates the total number of unique Web users connecting to its platform during the quarter to be well over one billion.

The global number of unique IP addresses seen by the Akamai Intelligent Platform grew by almost 19 million during the quarter. Among the top 10 countries that connected to

Akamai in the second quarter, six demonstrated growth in unique IP counts, ranging from 0.1 percent in South Korea to 12 percent in Brazil. Across the full set of countries/regions worldwide, slightly more than 60 percent saw a quarterly increase in unique IP address counts.

Year-over-year, the number of global unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai grew by 13 percent – an increase of more than 87 million from the second quarter of 2012. All of the top 10 countries experienced growth over the year, ranging from 2.3 percent in Japan to double-digit growth in Italy (12 percent), Russia (14 percent), China (22 percent) and Brazil (44 percent). Globally, just more than 75 percent of countries had higher unique IP address counts, with triple-digit growth seen in numerous countries, including Angola (101 percent) and Sudan (316 percent).

“The Second Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report notes some significant milestones and trends, including the fact that half of all connections to Akamai occurred at speeds of 4 Mbps or higher, a 25 percent increase since the first quarter of 2012,” said David Belson, the report’s editor. “We also saw a decline in the number of countries/regions with average connection speeds of 1 Mbps or less – down to 11 from 14 in the last quarter – likely indicative of improved broadband connectivity across some of the slowest geographies. These positive trends bode well for the continued increase and adoption of broadband connectivity around the world.”

Mobile Connectivity

During the second quarter of 2013, average connection speeds on surveyed mobile network operators ranged from a high of 9.7 Mbps to a low of 0.5 Mbps. Eleven operators demonstrated average connection speeds in the broadband (>4 Mbps) range, and 62 operators showed average connection speeds above 1 Mbps. Data collected by Ericsson shows that the volume of mobile data traffic grew 14 percent during the quarter and nearly doubled year-over-year.

Based on data derived from Akamai IO for the second quarter of 2013, mobile devices on cellular networks using the Android Webkit accounted for slightly less than 38 percent of requests while Apple Mobile Safari saw nearly 34 percent of requests. In measuring mobile devices across all network types, Apple Mobile Safari accounted just more than 54 percent of usage while Android Webkit was responsible for 27.6 percent.

About the Akamai State of the Internet Report

Each quarter, Akamai publishes a “State of the Internet” report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet. To download the figures from the Second Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report, please visit:

http://wwwns.akamai.com/soti/soti_q213_figures.zip

Latest Release of Akamai Aqua Ion Focused on Improving and Measuring Situational Performance

Updates to Akamai’s Flagship Web Experience Technology Correspond to Increasing Complexity and Diversity of Connectivity Situations

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – June 12, 2013 – Akamai® Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, today introduced several important updates to Aqua Ion, the company’s flagship Web experience product. Designed to meet the unique challenges of optimizing both the desktop and mobile Web experience, Aqua Ion is ideally suited for organizations serving dynamic Web content to a widely diverse set of users.

The Web delivery landscape is in a constant state of evolution. Fragmentation across browsers and devices has exposed a need among content providers for a deeper view of performance measurement and the ability to optimize for unique user situations. At the same time, the need to optimize differently for each situation presented by an individual user – situational performance – requires new thinking about how to measure the user experience and apply this intelligence to the delivery equation as seamlessly and efficiently as possible. Aqua Ion is designed to help address the staggering range of devices and connectivity situations that can impact the user experience and maximize the performance of content delivered over the Web.

According to a recent report from Forrester Research, Inc., “Optimizing a user’s experience requires information about what the user is doing, where the data is located, and where the devices are connecting from, etc. The fluidity of data, users, and applications makes it impossible for I&O teams to effectively manage this world with manual controls, tools, and resources; it is time to have automation take over, which requires fault, configuration, traffic, security, and performance information.”[1]

Akamai pioneered the concept of addressing situational performance with the initial launch of Aqua Ion in October 2012. Since its introduction, leading companies around the globe have used Aqua Ion to help them reduce the complexity of delivering Web experiences, drive better business results through faster Web experiences, and generate greater infrastructure efficiency.

Functionality enhancements in the latest release of Aqua Ion build on these benefits by making the technology faster and easier to deploy and manage; providing greater intelligence related to the user experience; and responding to the increasingly inconsistent user experience across a wide variety of devices.

One organization making use of Aqua Ion to address the challenges presented by situational performance requirements is Ozsale, a members-only online shopping club operating from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. A pure-play online retailer and recognized leader in its field, the performance and resilience of its online shopping platform is absolutely critical to the company, especially during peak sale events occurring multiple times per day. Further, Ozsale required a solution that could help increase scale and performance on desktop, mobile, and tablets regardless of user demand.

“Akamai’s Aqua Ion solution has helped us to establish a site experience that is second to none,” stated Gavin Cliffe, CTO, Ozsale. “With Akamai, we were able to improve performance for our Australian users by more than 130 percent, and as a result, we’ve been able to generate more online revenue and reduce operational costs.”

The latest version of Aqua Ion – to which existing Aqua Ion customers can automatically upgrade – tackles the need to understand the real user experience, rapidly and easily apply optimizations to meet situational performance requirements, and improve mobile performance. This is accomplished through new capabilities, including:

Real User Monitoring (RUM): RUM takes passive performance measurements from actual users of a Web experience to provide insight into performance across devices and networks. The addition of RUM to Aqua Ion is designed to help gain greater intelligence around the actual user experience related to the situation presented. This heightened intelligence offers key insight to content providers who can respond accordingly – and deliver smarter optimizations – when challenges are uncovered. RUM is a complementary capability to synthetic testing, and the two can and should be used to gain a comprehensive picture of user experience.
Enhanced Performance Capabilities: Aqua Ion builds on existing functionality to introduce new Front-end Optimization (FEO) techniques designed to help apply the best optimizations presented by user conditions. New techniques include DNS pre-fetching, which can help relieve bottlenecks when third-party services are used alongside first-party content, and Placeholder Images, which can help deliver a usable, interactive page to the user sooner.

Improved Usability and Rapid Configuration: Aqua Ion provides users the agility required to respond to the situational performance requirements of their users through new features designed to make configuration and the implementation of configuration changes as fast and easy as possible. A new wizard-based interface is designed to improve usability by making it easier to implement a solution that is situationally aware. As important, enhancements that enable faster custom configuration pushes to the platform have been introduced to help organizations address user situations more efficiently.

Enhanced Mobile Performance: The latest version of Aqua Ion now features SHUTR (Suppressed Headers for Uplink Traffic Reduction) support to help improve performance for mobile users. Developed together with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, SHUTR is a HTTP protocol extension designed to reduce the size of HTTP request headers sent by a mobile user agent. SHUTR speeds up page downloads and reduces network data traffic, overall improving the mobile Web experience on Snapdragon processor-based devices.

 "As the leading developer of mobile chipsets powering today’s smartest phones, Qualcomm Technologies is acutely aware of the unprecedented data demand being placed on devices and networks worldwide and is pioneering the effort to solve the 1000x mobile data challenge,” said Jason Bremner, SVP of Product Management for Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.  “Collaborating with Akamai to optimize HTTP connections via SHUTR is a step forward in addressing these demands and ensuring consumers have seamless connectivity to the vast amounts of data in our hyperconnected world.”

Commenting on the benefit the latest version of Aqua Ion can bring to customers, Mike Afergan, senior vice president and general manager, Web Experience Business Unit, Akamai, said, “Consumers are now in charge of how, when and where they connect to Web content. These varied situations are powerful for online business but create complexity for content providers and can result in a loss of control over the experience and ultimately how well it performs.” He continued, “Aqua Ion simplifies the complexity of modern Web delivery while at the same time providing a faster experience that is highly available, secure and scalable.”

[1] Fuse Business Acceleration Technologies To Optimize User Experiences by Andre Kindness, Forrester Research, Inc., May 8, 2013

Akamai Releases Fourth Quarter 2012 ‘State of the Internet’ Report

- Nearly 700 million unique IP addresses connected to Akamai Intelligent Platform
- Reported DDoS attacks grow more than 200 percent year over year
- Global average peak connection speed jumps 35 percent year over year

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – April 24, 2013 – Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, today released its Fourth Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent PlatformTM, the report provides insight into key global statistics including connection speeds, attack traffic, and network connectivity and availability, among many others.

The Fourth Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet Report includes new observations on Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, analysis of Phase II of the Operation Ababil attacks, and examinations of Internet disruptions in Syria, Bangladesh, and Senegal. The report also reviews mobile browser usage by network connection type collected by Akamai IO.

Highlights from Akamai’s Fourth Quarter, 2012 Report:

Global Internet Penetration
Nearly 700 million unique IPv4 addresses from 240 countries/regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform – 4.2 percent more than in the third quarter of 2012 and 13 percent more than in the fourth quarter of 2011. Since a single IP address can represent multiple individuals in some cases – such as when users access the Web through a firewall or proxy server – Akamai estimates the total number of unique Web users connecting to its platform during the quarter to be well over one billion.

Quarterly growth among all of the top 10 countries ranged from 1.1 percent in Japan to 5.1 percent in Russia. Among the full set of countries/regions worldwide that connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, 75 percent saw a quarterly increase in unique IP address counts.

Year-over-year, the global unique IP address count increased by nearly 10 percent, or more than 71 million, compared to the fourth quarter of 2011. Among the top 10 countries, yearly growth ranged from less than 1 percent in South Korea and Japan (0.2 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively) to double-digit growth rates in Russia (13 percent), China (19 percent), Italy (21 percent) and Brazil (33 percent). Globally, 79 percent of countries/regions had higher unique IP address counts year-over-year.

Attack Traffic and Top Ports Attacked
Akamai maintains a distributed set of unadvertised agents deployed across the Internet that log connection attempts, which the company classifies as attack traffic. Based on data collected by these agents, Akamai is able to identify the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks. It is important to note, however, that the originating country as identified by the source IP address may not represent the nation in which an attacker resides. For example, an individual in the United States may be launching attacks from compromised systems in China.

Akamai observed attack traffic from 177 unique countries/regions during the fourth quarter of 2012, down from 180 in the third quarter. China again maintained its position as the single largest volume source of observed traffic at 41 percent of the total, up from 33 percent in the prior quarter. The United States remained in the number two spot despite a drop in observed attack traffic from 13 percent to 10 percent in the fourth quarter. Turkey took over Russia’s number three spot with 4.7 percent.

The top 10 countries/regions generated 75 percent of the observed attack traffic during the quarter. China and the United States were responsible for slightly more than 50 percent of total attack traffic.

Port 445 (Microsoft-DS) remained the most targeted port in the fourth quarter, receiving 29 percent of attack traffic. Port 23 (Telnet) was again second at 7.2 percent.

Observations on DDoS Attacks
For the first time, the report includes insight into DDoS attacks reported by Akamai customers.  Data from this quarter’s report will serve as a baseline for future comparisons. Akamai customers reported 768 DDoS attacks in 2012, up more than 200 percent from 2011. Of those, 35 percent targeted companies in the Commerce sector and 22 percent focused on Media and Entertainment companies. Enterprise companies, which include financial services, were subject to 20 percent of reported attacks; 14 percent targeted High Tech and nine percent of reported attacks were directed toward Public Sector agencies. The 768 attacks were reported by 413 unique organizations, indicating that many organizations were targeted more than once – some significantly more.

Operation Ababil, Phase II
As highlighted in the report for the third quarter of 2012, Akamai was involved in protecting some of the organizations targeted by the “Operation Ababil” series of DDoS attacks. Those attacks continued through October before pausing until December 25, at which point they carried on into January of 2013.

As in the first phase, attackers continued to leverage the BroBot botnet to launch their attacks, and have varied the attacks in an attempt to evade filtering, primarily through the altering of query strings, user-agents, and targeted URLs. BroBot nodes have been observed sending traffic bursts at a rate of up to 10,000 requests per minute per node, and as many as 18 million attack requests per second.

Global Average and Peak Connection Speeds
Quarter-over-quarter, the global average connection speed rose 5 percent to 2.9 Mbps. Further, a total of 98 countries/regions that qualified for inclusion saw average connection speeds increase from the third quarter of 2012, ranging from 0.1 percent growth in the Netherlands and Luxembourg to 23 percent growth in Côte d'Ivoire.

Year-over-year, average connection speeds grew by 25 percent, with nine of the top 10 countries also demonstrating growth. In fact, only the Netherlands (3.3 percent), Hong Kong (5.4 percent) and Japan (19 percent) reported growth below 20 percent between 2011 and 2012.

Global average peak connection speeds enjoyed a quarter-over-quarter increase of 4.6 percent to 16.6 Mbps. Hong Kong again claimed the highest peak connection speed at 57.5 Mbps, a rise of 6.2 percent from last quarter.
Year-over-year, global average peak connection speeds once again demonstrated significant improvement, rising 35 percent.

Global broadband (>4 Mbps) and high broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption improved by 2.7 and 2.1 percent respectively for the quarter. Global broadband adoption rates rose slightly to 42 percent, while high broadband remained at 11 percent.

“Looking back across the year, we observed strong growth in our key connectivity metrics around the world. We believe that this points to greater availability of broadband connectivity, as well as increased speeds on those connections. This is supported as well by the long-term trends observed over the five-year history of the State of the Internet Report,” explained David Belson, the report’s editor. “The combination of improved broadband availability and higher speeds should open the door for greater innovation in how the Internet is used by both businesses and individuals around the globe.”

Mobile Connectivity
The fourth quarter of 2012 saw average connection speeds on surveyed mobile network operators range from a high of just over 8.0 Mbps to a low of 345 kbps. Eight providers demonstrated average connection speeds in the “broadband” (>4 Mbps) range. Sixty-four more providers delivered average connection speeds greater than 1 Mbps. Data collected by Ericsson shows that mobile data traffic doubled from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the fourth quarter of 2012, and grew 28 percent between the third and fourth quarter of 2012.

Mobile devices using Android Webkit accounted for the largest percentage of requests (35.3 percent) from devices on cellular networks connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform. Devices using Apple Mobile Safari represented 32.6 percent. When analyzed across all network types, the ratios were markedly different, with Apple Mobile Safari accounting for 58.7 percent of requests, and Android Webkit responsible for 21.7 percent.

About the Akamai State of the Internet report
Each quarter, Akamai publishes a “State of the Internet” report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet.

AKAMAI RAISES THE BAR FOR WEB SECURITY WITH ENHANCEMENTS TO KONA SITE DEFENDER

Cloud-Based Solutions Apply Protections at the Network Edge; 
Adds Greater Intelligence, Flexibility and Simplicity to Fighting Web Attacks

Kuala Lumpur – February 27, 2013 – Akamai® Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for delivering secure, high-performing user experiences to any device, anywhere, today unveiled several feature upgrades to the company’s Kona Site Defender web security solution. The enhancements are designed to add greater intelligence, flexibility and simplicity to the defense of web site and application attacks, giving businesses the tools to help organizations of all types better protect web sites and applications from an ever changing threat landscape.

Included in the new version of Kona Site Defender are upgraded Web Application Firewall (WAF) capabilities and network layer controls, new user validation capabilities and improved configuration and automation tools that speed both initial deployment and response time to changing attacks. Further, Akamai has developed Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and other modifications to Kona Site Defender. These are designed to make the technology easier to use by Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) as well as to facilitate tighter integration with existing on-premises security technology.

Kona Site Defender is an always-on cloud-based web security solution designed to protect an enterprise's most critical online business functions against attacks that can result in millions of dollars in lost transactions and business productivity each year, and even greater harm to brand value and reputation. Using the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ as its foundation, the solution offers highly flexible and scalable protection – that does not negatively impact performance – to customers against a variety of attack vectors including DDoS, as well as web application attacks such as SQL injection, Cross Site Scripting and others.

Enhancements to Kona Site Defender include:

• Akamai Common Rules:  In addition to the baseline WAF security offered by the OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS), organizations can now benefit from the extended security offered by the newly introduced Akamai Common Rules set. Each time the Akamai threat intelligence team experiences a new attack tool or a new version of an existing attack tool used against the platform, the company develops a rule to counter the attack. These rules are uniquely available to Akamai customers. To date, Akamai has developed and implemented rules to counter attacks such as LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) and HOIC (High Orbit Ion Cannon), among others.

• New Rate Control Capabilities: To help determine if anomalous traffic is being generated by users accessing the Internet from behind a proxy server and if that traffic is legitimate or malicious, Kona Site Defender features upgraded rate control capabilities. For example, IP addresses that might previously have been flagged as being the source of malicious content based on request volume can now easily be identified as a web proxy. This increased security intelligence is designed to enable customers to make better decisions about which traffic to block and which traffic to let through to their sites or web applications. Improved protection against slow-moving DDoS attack vectors better allows customers to fight “resource starvation” attacks that bring down sites and applications by tying up CPU power versus simply flooding with massive traffic levels.

• User Validation Capabilities: New to Kona Site Defender, the user validation module provides a way to better understand who or what is generating traffic aimed at your web site or web application. If traffic is identified as potentially malicious, the browser is redirected to a JavaScript confirmation page. If the browser passes, the client request is further processed. The user validation module helps reduce an enterprise’s exposure to machine-based attacks.

• Cloud Security Intelligence: The massive scale of the Akamai Intelligent Platform gives the company tremendous visibility into emerging attack vectors and other malicious activity that can negatively impact organizations doing business online. The intelligence derived from the processing and analysis of aggregated security data is designed to make Akamai services simpler, more automated and more efficient.

• Site Assessment and WAF Rule Update Services: To help identify potential site vulnerabilities and develop appropriate web security strategies, organizations can now engage with Akamai security experts for web site scanning and analysis. This one time professional services engagement is intended to provide customers with a deeper understanding of potential exposure to attack and options for mitigating risk. In addition, customers now can work with Akamai’s professional services organization for ongoing WAF rules updating and tuning.

• APIs and MSSP Flexibility: Understanding that customers may wish to use Kona Site Defender in conjunction with existing on-premises appliances or through relationships with MSSPs, Akamai is developing APIs and other modifications intended to ease integration with these environments. The APIs will enable on-premises security controls to tightly integrate with the DDoS mitigation functionalities delivered by Kona Site Defender. The ability for MSSPs to include Kona Site Defender in their portfolio of supported technology gives customers greater choice in how they deploy and take the best advantage of the solution according to their unique requirements.

“The threat landscape is constantly evolving and web security professionals need a solution that can keep pace with the array of challenges they face every day,” explained John Summers, vice president, Security Business, Akamai. “Customers that have deployed Kona Site Defender have been able to deal effectively with these new adversaries, new tools and new attacks. Mitigating the Operation Ababil attacks that began in September 2012 are just one example of our success.”

Kona Site Defender is part of the Akamai Kona Security Solutions family. Akamai customers across industries are using Kona Security Solutions to better protect their valuable web sites and web applications by extending the security perimeter outside the data-center and to provide protection from the increasing frequency, scale and sophistication of web attacks. To date, 27 of the Fortune 100, 37 of the Internet Retailer 100 (including 10 of the top 20) and 27 of the Mobile 100 use Kona Security Solutions to protect their online businesses.

For more information about Kona Security Solutions please visit http://www.akamai.com/html/solutions/kona-solutions.html.

ASIA GENERATING MORE THAN HALF OF ONLINE ATTACKS OBSERVED ACROSS AKAMAI PLATFORM

Latest State of the Internet report shows attack traffic originating from 195 countries or regions

CAMBRIDGE, MA – January 31, 2012 - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, today released its Third Quarter, 2011 State of the Internet report, based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™. The report provides insight into key global statistics such as Internet penetration, mobile traffic and data consumption, global and regional connection speeds, and observed attack traffic.

Akamai has recorded a 2000 percent increase in the number of DDoS attack incidents it has investigated on behalf of customers over the last three years. Additionally, observations by Akamai indicate that port-based attacks are still prevalent and being launched from around the globe. While the origin of this observed attack traffic could be individuals searching for easily compromised systems or botnets looking to recruit new participants, the observations indicate an ongoing need for solid network and systems hygiene to help prevent further system compromise and infection. The growing sophistication and intensity of Web-based attacks and the ongoing prevalence of port-based attacks highlight both the importance of online security, and the need for a defense-in-depth strategy.

Attack Traffic from Asia
During the third quarter of 2011, attack traffic originated from 195 unique countries or regions, up from 192 in the second quarter. In examining the continental distribution of observed attack traffic in the third quarter, we uncovered that slightly more than 49 percent originated in the Asia Pacific/Oceania region, up from 47 percent last quarter. Indonesia vaulted to the top of the list this quarter, generating 14 percent of observed attack traffic. Taiwan and China held the second and third place spots, respectively, accounting for just under 20 percent of observed attack traffic combined. Myanmar, which suddenly appeared at the top of the list in the prior two quarters, disappeared just as suddenly, potentially indicating that attack traffic has either been shut down, or is now coming from other places. With Myanmar dropping out of the top 10 list, South Korea moved in. The country more than tripled its observed level of attack traffic, representing 3.8 percent in the third quarter. In addition to South Korea and Indonesia, Taiwan, China, India, and Egypt were all responsible for higher percentages of attack traffic as compared to the prior quarter. Attack traffic originating in Europe was down slightly to 28 percent; North & South America accounted for nearly 19 percent; and the remaining 4 percent came from Africa.

Top Ports for Attack Traffic
Attack traffic concentration declined slightly from the second quarter, with the top 10 ports seeing 68 percent of observed attack traffic. Attacks targeting Port 80 (WWW/HTTP) dropped by about a third as compared to the second quarter, while attacks targeting Port 23 (Telnet) grew by almost the same amount. The growth in attacks targeting Port 23 is likely due to attacks apparently sourced in Egypt and South Korea – in Egypt there were over 18x as many attacks targeting Port 23, and in South Korea, nearly 4x as many attacks as the next most targeted port, which was Port 445 in both countries.

Reviewing observed attack traffic from known mobile networks, overall attack traffic concentration declined from the prior quarter, with the top 10 countries generating 76 percent of observed attacks. The list of top ports targeted remained consistent with the second quarter, with Port 445 remaining the target of an overwhelming majority of observed attacks as compared to the other ports in the top 10.

Additional highlights from the report include:

Internet and Broadband Adoption
In the current report, the global average connection speed was recorded at 2.7 Mbps, and the global average peak connection speed was 11.7 Mbps. At a country level, South Korea had the highest average connection speed, at 16.7 Mbps, as well as the highest average peak connection speed, at 46.8 Mbps. Cities in Japan and South Korea continued to hold many of the top spots for highest peak connection speeds. Globally, high broadband (>5 Mbps) adoption grew to 29 percent with South Korea leading at 79 percent. Global broadband (>2 Mbps) adoption increased to 66 percent, with Bulgaria continuing to have the highest level of broadband adoption, at 96 percent. Global narrowband (<256 kbps) adoption continued to decline, dropping to 2.5 percent. Libya’s 55 percent narrowband adoption rate placed it as the country with the highest level of connections in this speed range.

In the third quarter, more than 615 million unique IPv4 addresses from 239 countries/regions connected to the Akamai platform – 1.8 percent more than the second quarter, and 15 percent more than in the third quarter of 2010. Nearly 200 countries/regions saw year-over-year growth, with Brazil, Italy, and China all experiencing growth of 25 percent or more.

As more end-user networks roll out native IPv6 connectivity to their subscribers, and as more and more popular content is made available over IPv6, the number of unique IPv4 addresses making requests to Akamai from a given network provider may decline. Over the long-term, we expect measurements to show movement of unique addresses from IPv4-based to IPv6-based.

Mobile Connectivity
Average connection speeds on known mobile providers ranged from 6.1 Mbps down to 327 kbps, while average peak connection speeds in the quarter ranged from 22.2 Mbps to 1.4 Mbps. Looking at mobile content consumption, users on nine mobile providers consumed on average more than one gigabyte (1 GB) of content from Akamai per month, while users on an additional 75 mobile providers downloaded more than 100 MB of content per month. In addition, based on data collected by Ericsson, mobile data traffic continued to double on a year-over-year basis, and grew 18 percent between the second and third quarters of 2011.

100 Fastest Cities Worldwide
In the third quarter of 2011, analysis of the top 100 fastest cities around the world, based on average connection speeds, reflected the following:
• Cities in Asia continue to dominate the list, including South Korean cities rounding out the top 5 and 57 cities in Japan making the list
• Amsterdam, Netherlands is the fastest city in Europe (#33 out of 100)
• 23 U.S. cities made the list, with San Jose, CA ranking as the fastest (#13 out of 100)

TM SIGNS WITH AKAMAI TO HOST NETSTORAGE

Collaboration established on the sidelines of Capacity Asia 2011

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) today established a strategic partnership with Akamai, the leading cloud platform provider which will see Akamai’s NetStorage being hosted on TM’s network.

With its diverse Internet Protocol-based (IP-based) international network, TM will be able to offer NetStorage not only to its domestic but also its regional customers through its Point of Presence (POPs) connectivity.

Let’s work together…Rozaimy Abd. Rahman, Executive Vice President, TM Global (2nd from right) exchanging documents with David Rich, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Akamai (2nd from left) after the signing ceremony for a partnership between TM and Akamai, witnessed by Philip Chua, Regional Manager, ASEAN, Akamai (left), Dr. Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, Director of NKEA (CCI & Business Services), PEMANDU (centre) and Datuk Bazlan Osman, Group Chief Financial Officer, TM (right).

The partnership agreement was signed by Rozaimy Abd. Rahman, Executive Vice President, TM Global while Akamai was represented by David Rich, Vice President of Asia Pacific. The signing ceremony was witnessed by Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, Director of NKEA, PEMANDU, Datuk Bazlan Osman, Group Chief Financial Officer, TM and Akamai’s representatives.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Rozaimy said, “TM is very pleased with this collaboration with Akamai on the NetStorage arrangement, which sees Akamai’s only such storage facility in South Asia hosted in Malaysia. The Akamai NetStorage, which will also attract high volume of Internet traffic to TM’s network, will definitely strengthen Malaysia’s position as a regional Internet hub.”

Rozaimy also added, “With the collaboration, TM’s customers will be able to enjoy excellent internet connectivity and enhanced surfing experience as the source of content is stored locally here, which will result in seamless network performance.”

NetStorage is a secure, cost effective managed service for the storage of large volumes of data, offered by the US-based Akamai. Akamai NetStorage offers multiple terabytes of storage capacity on demand, automatic failover capability, content replication and connectivity to multiple Internet service providers. It also intelligently monitors network traffic and automatically avoids congestion and overloads for better overall user experience. Customers will also be getting support from an award-winning team that has integrated close to 3,000 Akamai customers through a well-established methodology.

“Today’s hyperconnected world is leading to enormous demand on data traffic and storage capacity on the Internet,” said David Rich, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Akamai.

“This new collaborative effort between Akamai and TM will help cement the value of Malaysia as an important Internet hub in this region. Malaysia has sound Internet infrastructure, and it is well connected to many countries in this region. This makes it an ideal location for the Akamai NetStorage facility,” added Rich.

Akamai NetStorage will be deployed in TM’s Data Centre in Cyberjaya, which is targeted to be fully completed by end of 2011.

TM, Malaysia’s leading new generation communications provider and broadband champion, has aggressively enhanced, improved and upgraded its IP service platform to further meet the increasingly demanding customers’ expectations. Earlier this year, the company has embarked into IPv6 capability to address the exhaustion of IPv4 in the region. TM IP services are also equipped with the latest security features such as black holes and clean pipes to secure its IP network against any unwanted threats.

TM, via its subsidiary VADS Berhad, provides world class global storage and is a major hub for data in this region. As the largest Data Centre provider in the country, TM leverages on its 14 carrier-neutral data centres nationwide which are ISO 27001 certified and fulfil all Tier 3 standards and is Tier 4 ready. It is further backed by an extensive nationwide and global high-speed IP network, coupled with its existing vast customer base to offer a high Service Level Assurance, superlative levels of availability, and security with high redundancy for its clients. It will enable companies to have an IT infrastructure without the complexity of procurement and capital investment.

The signing ceremony between TM and Akamai was held on the sidelines of Capacity Asia 2011, a pan-Asian wholesale telecommunications meeting for regional and international providers. Capacity Asia 2011, on from 1 November until 2 November 2011, is the 7^th edition of the conference and has gathered more than 400 delegates of 130 companies from 40 countries. This year TM, as a Platinum Sponsor, continues to co-host the annual event for the 5^th consecutive year in Kuala Lumpur.

As part of its participation in Capacity Asia 2011, TM has invited Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, Director of NKEA (CCI & Business Services), PEMANDU to enlighten the audience which came from across the globe on Malaysia’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) in his Opening Address. Datuk Bazlan Osman meanwhile participated in the CEO Interview Panel Discussion with the topic ‘Developing New Business Models for an Increasingly Competitive Carrier Market: What will the market look like in 2020?’ alongside Rory Cole, Chief Operating Officer, President Carrier Business, Reliance Globalcom.

TM also showcased its data services and solutions at the event, among others; its International Ethernet Private Line (IEPL), Global Ethernet Services (GES), Global Bilateral Voice, Global Wholesale Voice and International Value-Added Services (VAS).

For more information on TM and its Global services, visit www.tm.com.my.