What Is a Secure Internet Gateway?

As the business world continues to experience transformational changes, a secure internet gateway is a critical part of a multilayered approach to security, providing vital protection against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks.

A secure internet gateway is a security solution that monitors and filters web traffic, blocking malicious or unauthorized traffic to prevent cyberattacks, data leaks, advanced threats, and other malicious activities. These web security technologies monitor both incoming and outgoing traffic, protecting IT environments from external cyberattacks as well as internal threats. Gateways identify and block internet traffic from malware attacks, ransomware, DDoS attacks, and other external cyberthreats. They can also block users inside the organization from accessing malicious websites or from purposely leaking or inadvertently exposing sensitive corporate data.

Managing a secure internet gateway has traditionally been a complex and time-consuming task. For organizations that want to increase threat protection while minimizing administrative overhead, Akamai offers powerful secure gateway technology in Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise.

Traditionally, organizations have deployed internet gateways as physical appliances in data centers, backhauling web traffic to the appliance for inspection and control. As mobile and remote workforces have become more popular, physical gateways have become increasingly difficult and expensive to manage. To inspect all the traffic flowing over the public internet to SaaS applications, organizations must install multiple redundant gateways in central data centers as well as in remote locations. Managing, maintaining, and updating large numbers of gateways is complex, costly, and time-consuming. And maintaining consistent security policies across multiple locations and devices is a nightmare for overburdened security teams.

A cloud-based secure internet gateway eliminates the need to deploy hardware or virtual appliances and reduces the complexity of configuring, managing, and replacing or upgrading hardware every few years. These solutions are easier to scale, as customers can simply add more services as needed with minimal impact on performance. Cloud-based gateways reduce network security costs by adding protection without needing to backhaul traffic. Security teams can be freed from the ongoing maintenance of hardware or software to focus on other proactive security measures. And organizations can consistently manage and enforce security policies from a central security platform.

A superior cloud-based secure internet gateway should offer several essential features:

• Multiple payload analysis technologies are important, since no single detection technology can catch every type of security threat.
• Zero-day phishing detection is essential, as these campaigns can have devastating results.
• The gateway must inspect encrypted traffic, since attackers often use encryption to hide their activities.
• Data loss prevention functionality is necessary to protect sensitive data like personally identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property.
• The best gateways offer protection for every device in every location, proactively blocking attacks across any network a user joins.
• The ability to identify shadow IT can help security teams to block or manage the use of these unauthorized technologies.

Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is a cloud-based secure internet gateway that delivers everything security teams need, including multiple layers of protection to proactively identify and block targeted threats. Leveraging the global Akamai Connected Cloud platform and Akamai’s carrier-grade recursive DNS service, Secure Internet Access Enterprise can be configured quickly, deployed easily, and managed through the cloud-based Akamai Control Center portal.

To take advantage of the protections offered by Secure Internet Access Enterprise, organizations can direct web traffic to this Akamai technology using a range of methods such as IPsec tunnels or a lightweight client, or by forwarding web traffic from an existing on-premises proxy or Akamai’s managed HTTP forwarder.

Features include:

• DNS and URL filtering. Akamai inspects every requested domain and HTTP/S URL against real-time threat intelligence to identify and block access to malicious code in domains and sites.
• Payload analysis. Akamai uses multiple advanced malware-detection engines to scan HTTP/S payloads inline or offline. Signature, machine learning, and sandboxing technologies deliver comprehensive zero-day protection against downloads of potentially malicious files, executables, and documents. Akamai’s malicious JavaScript and zero-day phishing detection engine blocks newly created malicious pages at the point of request, even when the page has never been seen before.
• Data loss prevention (DLP). Akamai blocks or monitors files and communications that contain PII, HIPAA data, or PCI DSS information.
• Application visibility and control. This Akamai solution limits application controls, or identifies and blocks usage of unsanctioned web applications based on risk score.
• Off-network protection. Akamai protects laptops, mobile devices, and other endpoints used off network.
• Acceptable use policies. Administrators can enforce acceptable use policies and compliance by restricting which content categories can and cannot be accessed by users.
• Analysis, reports, and logs. Real-time dashboards deliver insights into security, traffic, and acceptable use policy alerts. Logs can be exported or integrated into a SIEM.
• Easy integration. Secure Internet Access Enterprise integrates easily with other security products and reporting tools to maximize the return on investment across all layers of the security stack.

With Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise, organizations can:

• Enhance security by proactively blocking requests to phishing sites, malware and ransomware drop sites, and malware command and control (C2) servers.
• Block DNS data exfiltration based on unique and timely threat intelligence.
• Manage web security with a cloud-based solution that can be deployed globally, configured in minutes, and scaled rapidly with no disruption in user experience.
• Improve zero-day protection by scanning requested files and web pages to block malicious payloads and stop threats before they compromise endpoint devices.
• Get control of shadow IT and unsanctioned apps by identifying and blocking applications or limiting features based on risk score.
• Enforce uniform compliance with acceptable use policies by blocking access to objectionable or inappropriate content categories and domains.
• Improve security for off-network devices without requiring a VPN.
• Provide data leak prevention by blocking uploads of confidential or sensitive data.
• Simplify security management by reducing false positives, minimizing alerts, and administering policies and updates from anywhere.