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

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the world’s largest and most trusted cloud delivery platform, today announced that it was cited as a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Web Application Firewalls, Q2 2018 evaluation. Akamai received the top-ranked scores in the Current Offering and Strategy categories among the select companies that Forrester invited to participate in the evaluation.

According to the report, malicious attackers are constantly aiming to breach applications, and WAFs are a key part of an effective, layered prevention strategy. Security pros require a WAF that will automatically protect web applications, stay ahead of zero-day attacks, and protect new application formats such as APIs and serverless architectures.

“Akamai has, for several years, been providing effective protection for many of the internet’s most valuable web sites and applications from exploitation by cyber criminals,” said Josh Shaul, Vice President of Web Security, Akamai. “I’m delighted to see the recognition as a leader from Forrester of, in our opinion, our market leading defensive capabilities and what we consider to be the independent validation that Akamai’s capabilities have significant differentiation from other vendors in the web application firewall space.”

The Forrester Wave report states that, “Even in a utopian world, where development teams remove all known vulnerabilities and weaknesses from their applications’ source code, threats will continue to exist in the form of zero-day attacks… Akamai offers very strong zero-day attack coverage and strong attack detection, with sound attack response and management UI.” In the Current Offering category, Akamai was the only vendor to receive the top score possible in the “Zero-day attacks” criterion.

Akamai maintains that protecting critical sites and apps requires massive capacity and robust, risk-adaptive intelligence delivered at the edge. Akamai customers maximize their security posture through a combination of DDoS mitigation, application and API security, and context-based behavioral intelligence. Akamai’s web application firewall solutions provide curated rules that are constantly updated by Akamai security researchers and powerful machine learning algorithms, with tailored risk scores to inform digital businesses of vulnerabilities and emerging threats.

In the Strategy category, Akamai earned the top-ranked score and was among those that received the highest scores in three of the four criteria, including “Market Approach”, “Execution and Roadmap”, and “Training”.

“We believe Akamai’s position as a leader in the Forrester Wave™: Web Application Firewalls report is an important indicator of not only the results of our nearly two decades of delivering security outcomes for our customers, but of where Akamai is going in the future - adapting to evolving market demands as the world pursues a mobile-first, all digital experience for customers and employees alike,” concluded Shaul.

A complimentary copy of The Forrester Wave™: Web Application Firewalls, Q2 2018 evaluation is available for download here. For additional information regarding Akamai’s WAF offerings, visit here.