Bolstering Uptime for Panasonic Europe Online

A global leader in innovative technologies and solutions

Founded in 1918, Panasonic is a global leader in developing innovative technologies and solutions for wide-ranging applications in the consumer electronics, housing, automotive, industry, communications, and energy sectors worldwide. The IT infrastructure for Panasonic in Europe is managed by Panasonic Information Systems Company Europe (PISCEU). When PISCEU recognized the growing threat posed by web scans, crawls, and DDoS attacks, it leveraged trusted Akamai solutions and expertise to ensure availability of its critical infrastructure. 

Enabling uninterrupted business

Like all companies providing world-class products, Panasonic’s business units in Europe rely on their infrastructure to enable nonstop business. That’s where Panasonic Information Systems Company Europe (PISCEU) comes into play. As a dedicated IT service provider, PISCEU manages  IT network and infrastructure services — including over 200 websites and applications — for these business divisions. The 200+ web properties represent the online presence of Panasonic in Europe across the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Germany, enabling consumers, businesses, and partners to interact and transact with the company. 

Ensuring uninterrupted availability is crucial to PISCEU’s mission. In addition to disrupting business operations, website and application downtime can introduce regulatory compliance challenges when data loss is involved. Considering that the EU maintains some of the strongest data protection rules in the world, PISCEU takes this issue very seriously.

As Stefan Schulze, Principal IT Consultant, Network & Cloud Security for PISCEU, explains, “Since we are responsible for the availability of all European web presences of Panasonic, we must take every precaution against internet threats. This became more challenging as we saw a growing volume of unauthorized vulnerability scanning, unauthorized crawling orchestrated by AI, and high-volume, short-burst DDoS attacks.”

Going with the industry leader

Knowing Panasonic headquarters in Japan already uses Akamai solutions — and that Akamai is highly rated by industry analysts, including Gartner — PISCEU evaluated Akamai solutions alongside other providers as part of its due diligence. Akamai’s web application firewall (WAF) and Bot Manager suited PISCEU’s technical needs, including its security requirements. Plus, PISCEU was impressed by Akamai’s data compliance approach, positive customer references, and ability to provide hands-on support via Professional Services as PISCEU migrated to the Akamai Connected Cloud platform.

“We needed to migrate a rich portfolio of over 200 web properties with very different profiles. Akamai gave us the confidence that it could streamline the process and help us hit our timeline,” says Schulze. 

Migrating 200+ web properties 

To ensure an on-time project, Akamai called upon automation and APIs to migrate assets from PISCEU’s previous CDN provider and to create a workable data model on the Akamai platform. Semi-automated testing further made the process efficient for PISCEU. 

“The Akamai migration team acted as a trusted partner dedicated to achieving deadlines and adapting to the approach that worked best for us. They met our expectations, and even exceeded them at times,” explains Schulze. 

Set up for success from the start

Akamai Professional Services guided PISCEU on configuring the Akamai cloud-based web application firewall, a critical component of PISCEU’s defense against internet threats and attacks. In addition to recommending best practices for initial setup, Akamai’s experts presented in-depth training on how to identify suspicious behavior and isolate false positives. 

“The Professional Services team even analyzed our false positives, empowering us to shift our use of WAF from monitoring to blocking mode. The level of insight that Akamai provides into network traffic and suspicious behavior gave us the confidence to take this proactive stance, knowing we will not be blocking legitimate traffic,” continues Schulze. 

Gaining enhanced visibility into security 

With Akamai in place, PISCEU can more easily and efficiently detect malicious traffic and false positives in its WAF ruleset. Powerful visuals enable PISCEU to pinpoint WAF events within overall traffic, and daily Akamai reports help it tune the WAF ruleset. 

As Schulze underscores, “Detection is critical within any WAF, even as traffic patterns change with new markets, new user bases, and new back-end technologies. Akamai empowers us with effective detection, even in a complex environment.” 

In fact, Akamai enables PISCEU to shape its bot traffic. “If we detect malicious traffic or traffic unrelated to business, we can intervene and decrease it,” Schulze says. Going forward, Schulze anticipates using additional Akamai tools to even more granularly track and manage bot traffic.

As Schulze sees it, one of the biggest values of PISCEU’s partnership with Akamai is working collaboratively with Akamai’s team of experts to continually improve its threat detection and monitoring, and ensure operational stability. “By calling upon Akamai solutions and expertise, we can assure our business divisions that their web presence will be available,” he concludes.

About Panasonic

Founded in 1918, and today a global leader in developing innovative technologies and solutions for wide-ranging applications in the consumer electronics, housing, automotive, industry, communications, and energy sectors worldwide, the Panasonic Group switched to an operating company system on April 1, 2022, with Panasonic Holdings Corporation serving as a holding company and eight companies positioned under its umbrella. The Group reported consolidated net sales of 8,378.9 billion yen (ca. 59.4 billion Euro) for the year ending March 31, 2023. To learn more about the Panasonic Group, please visit https://holdings.panasonic/global.

About Panasonic Information Systems Company Europe

As the European IT division of Panasonic, our mission is to be the most trusted and strategic business- and IT consulting partner for all Panasonic companies in Europe, ensuring their business transformation towards a digital and data-driven enterprise. We therefore offer a wide range of IT services and solutions, as well as IT consulting in the areas of applications, infrastructure, web and digital, purchasing and license management, as well as compliance and security services.