Akamai Identified as a Web Application Firewall (WAF) Leader by Independent Research Firm

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the intelligent edge platform for securing and delivering digital experiences, today announced that it was cited as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Web Application Firewalls, Q1 2020 evaluation. Akamai received the top score in the Current Offering category amongst “the 10 most significant web application firewall (WAF) providers in the category” Forrester evaluated.

According to the report, “Organizations want more from their WAF providers — and the degree of negative feedback from vendor-supplied references in this Forrester Wave warns that, unless vendors adapt, the WAF market is ripe for disruption.” In Akamai’s Vendor Profile portion of the report, Forrester writes that “In a sea of middling WAF customer references, Akamai stood out among the vendors for its across-the-board positive reviews, with particularly high marks for attack detection, attack response, and internal threat intelligence.”

Customers, Forrester reports, also “Expect WAFs to provide protection against an ever-broader spate of application attacks, including API- based attacks, client-side attacks, and even bots. Furthermore, the adoption of DevSecOps means that WAFs must integrate with the rest of the application development and security infrastructure and help security leaders quickly identify and respond to application threats.” Akamai scored highest in the report in the current offering category, which includes attack detection, attack response, zero-day attacks, management interface, reporting and analytics, and feedback loops.

The Forrester Wave report states that, “WAF customers should look for providers that extend beyond traditional WAF protections...” and that the recent acquisition of ChameleonX hints at Akamai’s roadmap for protecting third-party scripts from Magecart-like attacks. Akamai’s WAF, Kona Site Defender, is one in a suite of security products that also includes DDoS protection, bot management, and an API gateway available to Akamai’s CDN customers.

“Akamai intelligent edge security keeps websites, applications, application programming interfaces (APIs) and users safe,” said Raja Patel, Vice President of Products, Web Security, Akamai. “Our recognition as a leader from Forrester, is in our view independent validation of how Akamai’s web application firewall detects the largest, most sophisticated attacks and thwarts them every day. With an average of 178 billion WAF rule triggers a day, Akamai harnesses unmatched visibility into attacks to deliver curated and highly accurate WAF protections.”