Akamai Launches Guardicore Platform

Akamai Technologies has announced the Akamai Guardicore Platform helps businesses meet their Zero Trust goals. The Akamai Guardicore Platform is the first security platform to combine industry-leading Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and microsegmentation to help security teams stop ransomware, meet compliance mandates, and secure their hybrid workforce and hybrid cloud infrastructure. Ransomware groups have become more aggressive in their methods of both extortion and vulnerability exploitation, and have evolved their tactics and techniques at a rate that conventional security tools just can’t keep up with. According to an Akamai report, growth in victim companies in APJ increased by 50% between Q4 2021 and Q4 2022, with a giant leap of 204% in the victim count year-over-year when comparing Q1 2022 with Q1 2023. The sharp increase in ransomware attacks, coupled with increasingly stringent compliance mandates have made it challenging for today’s security teams. Existing perimeter-based security solutions, such as traditional network firewalls and VPNs are also no longer valid in today’s threat landscape. In addition, instead of helping to reduce an organization’s attack surface, frequent security vulnerabilities in these traditional security tools have instead contributed to the attack surface. According to Gartner, by 2026, 60% of enterprises working toward zero trust architecture will use more than one deployment form of microsegmentation, which is up from less than 5% in 2023. This is crucial in the context of APJ where an Akamai report indicates that organizations in APAC have cited the lack of skills and expertise as their greatest segmentation challenge. “Across APJ, many security teams are facing challenges in deploying advanced solutions like ZTNA and microsegmentation because of the scarcity of expertise and knowledge around such solutions. As they navigate this challenge, there’s a growing imperative for solutions like these to be much more streamlined and integrated, offering the key to bolster protection with greater ease and efficiency,” said Reuben Koh, Director of Security Technology & Strategy, APJ, Akamai Technologies. “Security teams are under more pressure than ever as they face ransomware threats and manage stringent compliance standards, all while trying to consolidate vendors and manage budgets,” said Pavel Gurvich, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Enterprise Security at Akamai. “As organizations are adopting Zero Trust, they are looking for simplified experiences that offer broad visibility and granular controls for all assets and access policies. Security professionals can deploy the Akamai Guardicore Platform as a single console to consolidate agents and implement Zero Trust principles across varied infrastructures.” The Akamai Guardicore Platform simply and efficiently enables Zero Trust through a fully integrated combination of microsegmentation, ZTNA, multi-factor authentication, DNS firewall, and threat hunting. Furthermore, the microsegmentation component specifically is getting a host of impactful improvements aimed at streamlining workflows and enhancing security posture. Among these are multi-factor segmentation that recognizes authentication checks as part of microsegmentation rules, essential policy that enables quick implementation of researched and best practice–based policies, and integration of worksites to allow scoped delegation. Benefits of the Akamai Guardicore Platform include: ●   Best-in-class solutions working better together For the first time ever, industry-leading microsegmentation andindustry-leading ZTNA can be leveraged as individual assets or in tandem for greater value. A single agent, console, and vendor for Zero Trust means more businesses will reach Zero Trust than ever before. ●   Broad Zero Trust coverage Enforce Zero Trust principles on-premises and in the cloud, and secure workforces remotely and in the office. ●   Unified policy engine Enforce policy for east-west traffic and north-south access, without having to change syntax or consoles, for the simplest and most effective means of acting on Zero Trust. ●  Lightweight, consolidated infrastructure A single agent with maximum value where needed. Agentless coverage everywhere else. Deploy quickly at enterprise scale with negligible impact on system performance and downtime. ●  Broad and rich visibility Administrators can view all assets and users like nodes, and their communications and access like edges on a graph. Zoom in and out for high-level views or deep analysis. This makes building a Zero Trust policy that addresses east-west traffic and north-south access far less complex. ●  Modular flexibility Leverage exactly the modules needed while remaining ready to add more capabilities when the time is right. These include microsegmentation, ZTNA, DNS firewall, and more. Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for Zero Trust The Akamai Guardicore Platform leverages AI to simplify user experience, vulnerability assessments, compliance, and incident response. Features and benefits include: ●      AI assistant The Akamai Guardicore Platform introduces AI to allow security professionals to ask natural language questions of their network instead of manually poring through logs, to drastically expedite a variety of use cases like compliance scoping and incident response. ●      AI labeling Network labeling has been notoriously difficult, manual, and time-consuming. The Akamai Guardicore Platform leverages AI to simplify the process, examine how assets are behaving, and suggest labels. These suggestions come with a confidence score and an explanation as to why the label was chosen.