Akamai extends micro-segmentation to amazon web services; Enhances ZTNA for optimal application performance

Akamai Technologies announced that it is extending its industry-leading segmentation solution, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, to support agentless enforcement for cloud native resources in Amazon Web Services (AWS), further expanding its existing capabilities in cloud environments. In addition, Akamai added new features to its Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) product, Akamai Enterprise Application Access. These features aim to enhance application performance while providing a superior user experience.

Nearly one third (32%) of cybersecurity breaches involved ransomware or extortion, according to the Verizon 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report. The same report found that ransomware was a top threat across 92% of industries. These statistics highlight the need for organisations to implement a comprehensive Zero Trust framework to defend against the rapidly growing threat landscape.

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation available on AWS

While organisations of all sizes are implementing public cloud strategies to innovate and realise new efficiencies, challenges remain. Leveraging Akamai Guardicore Segmentation in the cloud helps organisations address a lack of visibility into application behavior, the need to configure disparate security policies across cloud providers, and governance issues between DevOps and SecOps teams.

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation provides seamless microsegmentation for multicloud and on-premises environments, now complemented by agentless support for platform as a service PaaS) resources across Azure and AWS.

“We’re giving Akamai customers the visibility and security controls they need to protect their cloud environments — while ensuring a smooth single-pane-of-glass experience — by seamlessly delivering the applications and services users rely on,” said Ofer Wolf, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Enterprise Security at Akamai. “Whether our customers are on-prem, in the cloud, or leveraging IaaS or PaaS capabilities, we’re making sure they can focus on growing their business and serving their customers, not stress about their Zero Trust journey.”

Benefits of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation in the cloud include:

• Agentless cloud native visibility and enforcement enables administrators to visualise cloud workloads using a near-real-time interactive map of true network flows, understanding the application dependencies and bringing together DevOps and SecOps teams in cloud network security governance.
• A hybrid enforcement engine leveraging multiple enforcement points allows an organisation to simply define the intent of network policy and have the Akamai Guardicore Segmentation policy engine take care of the rest, dynamically deciding which agent-based and agentless enforcement points are used across the data center.
• Integrated reputation analysis and DNS firewall capabilities are designed to reduce time to detection and incident response time in the event of a breach.
• A scalable and secure solution ensures data does not leave cloud environments and the solution architecture scales automatically within it.

Akamai Enterprise Application Access updates

Thanks to Akamai’s unique global infrastructure, Enterprise Application Access is well suited for global organisations seeking to provide secure access for their entire workforce. Enterprise Application Access runs using Akamai Connected Cloud’s edge delivery and distributed cloud compute capabilities, helping organisations deliver fast and secure access to applications and services for employees whether they are in the office or remote. Enterprise Application Access can run as a stand-alone solution or on top of the Akamai Guardicore Platform as part of the unified Zero Trust suite with UI, policy, and agent or agentless capabilities.

“Proximity matters when it comes to delivering Zero Trust Network Access that touches every employee in an organisation,” said Wolf. “With Enterprise Application Access, we’re utilizing Akamai Connected Cloud to help organisations deliver a fast and seamless experience for users that gives them access to the applications and services they need to do their jobs. Users expect business applications to start quickly and respond efficiently. Slow applications cause frustration and lead to an increase in IT support calls. With Enterprise Application Access, we’re helping to eliminate that frustration.”

According to the Gartner Hype Cycle for Zero-Trust Networking 2024, published on July 15, 2024, “Cloud-based ZTNA offerings improve scalability and ease of adoption for secure remote access.” Deploying ZTNA infrastructure close to where applications are hosted and users are working helps organisations ensure that applications are fast and responsive, providing a superior end-user experience. Organisations can help solve performance issues for in-office users by eliminating hairpinning, ensuring consistent and fast application access without additional hardware costs or deploying additional software.

New features and benefits of Akamai Enterprise Application Access include:

• Edge transport helps enable fast, responsive end-user experiences by embedding performance optimisation directly into the application path. The new capability can deliver reliable, stable performance for remote application access regardless of the end user’s or application’s location; that includes environments with degraded internet connectivity or when transferring files using the SMB protocol.
• ​​Local point of presence (PoP) allows organisations to apply ZTNA policies locally for in-office users and ensures optimal application performance by eliminating the need to route traffic to an Enterprise Application Access cloud PoP. A local PoP can make file downloads two to three times faster and noticeably improve application speed compared to routing traffic to an Enterprise Application Access cloud PoP.