Akamai announces acquisition of Cyberfend
Akamai Technologies, Inc., has acquired Cyberfend, an innovator in bot and automation detection solutions for web and mobile environments, in an all-cash transaction. The acquisition is intended to further strengthen Akamai’s existing bot management and mitigation services.
Credential theft and abuse is a significant problem for online businesses and their customers. Recent industry estimates place the number of compromised user credentials (e.g. usernames, passwords, email addresses) exfiltrated during major breaches and currently in circulation in the billions. The value of these stolen credentials can be worth as much as two to five times more than basic credit card information.
Sophisticated credential abuse campaigns, which often take advantage of several different attack vectors, attempt to use these stolen credentials to log into a wide range of popular web and mobile services including commerce, financial services, travel and healthcare, among others.
Successfully detecting attacks utilising stolen credentials can be challenging as the credentials themselves are legitimate. In addition, the attackers can hide within regular web and mobile user traffic, attack during normal service hours and distribute attacks from commonly used devices associated with millions of IP addresses across multiple geographic regions.
“With the introduction of Bot Manager earlier this year, Akamai helped change the way online businesses deal with the bots and other automated agents that visit their sites,” explained Stuart Scholly, senior vice president and general manager, Web Security, Akamai. “The addition of Cyberfend’s technology is intended to give our customers a better way to spot and stop credential abuse on their sites – benefitting both the online business and its users.”
Through its acquisition of Cyberfend, Akamai plans to extend the capabilities of the company’s Bot Manager solution by offering online businesses the technology required to effectively distinguish between real customers and attackers, and limit attackers’ ability to avoid detection. The company believes that Cyberfend’s robust, machine learning-based real-time detection capabilities – which are already in use on some of the world’s most heavily trafficked web properties – will be instrumental to Bot Manager’s continued differentiation as the solution that can best meet complex customer requirements.
“Cyberfend is currently helping online businesses implement highly effective strategies for dealing with credential abuse attacks,” stated Sreenath Kurupati, co-founder and CEO, Cyberfend.
Company co-founder Sridhar Machiroutu continued: “Adding the scale and reach of Akamai’s platform to Cyberfend’s technology, and complementing Akamai’s Bot Manager solution with Cyberfend’s capabilities, creates an exciting value proposition for customers worldwide.”
Cyberfend, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is a privately funded company. The acquisition is not material to Akamai’s financials.