Akamai Acquires Prolexic to Protect Customers From DDoS Attacks

A look inside the network operating center for Akamai Technologies, which tracks web traffic at hundreds of locations around the globe. The company has acquired Prolexic to boost its customers' defenses against electronic attacks.(Photo: Akamai)

Content delivery network (CDN) specialist Akamai Technologies is acquiring Prolexic in a bid to extend its web optimization and security offerings. Prolexic is a natural extension for Akamai, as the hybrid CDN/security model has been on the rise. Akamai will acquire all of the outstanding equity of Prolexic in exchange for a net cash payment of approximately $370 million, after expected purchase price adjustments, plus the assumption of outstanding unvested options to purchase Prolexic stock.

Prolexic gives Akamai (AKAM) further cloud-based security for protecting data centers and enterprise IP applications from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. DDoS attacks can temporarily cripple a organization, preventing legitimate users from accessing a service.

"Any company doing business on the Internet faces an evolving threat landscape of attacks aimed at disrupting operations, defacing the brand, or attempting to steal sensitive data and information," said Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai. "By joining forces with Prolexic, we intend to combine Akamai’s leading security and performance platform with Prolexic’s highly-regarded DDoS mitigation solutions for data center and enterprise applications protection. We believe that Prolexic’s solutions and team will help us achieve our goal of making the Internet fast, reliable, and secure."

Companies like CloudFlare that provide a hybrid of CDN and security services have captured a lot of the consumer market, and  stand as a possible future threat to Akamai’s business. Akamai needs to evolve, and it is doing so here. Akamai is firmly rooted in the higher end of the market and will maintain its position by expanding its portfolio of security solutions, in addition to content delivery services. The acquisition means businesses can acquire performance and DDoS mitigation from a single vendor.

"Today, business is defined by the availability, security and latency of Internet-facing applications, data and infrastructure," said Scott Hammack, CEO at Prolexic, which has been a pioneer in DDoS defense. "Being able to rely on one provider for Internet performance and security greatly simplifies resolution of network availability issues and offers clients clear lines of accountability. We believe that, together, we will be able to deliver an unprecedented level of network visibility and protection."

Akamai intends to provide customers with a comprehensive portfolio of security solutions designed to defend an enterprise’s Web and IP infrastructure against application-layer, network-layer and data center attacks delivered via the Internet.