Akamai Acquires DDoS Security Provider Prolexic for $370M

Cloud services provider (CSP) Akamai Technologies, Inc. (AKAM) has announced plans to purchase cloud-based cyber security provider Prolexic Technologies, Inc. for approximately $370 million to protect its offerings from cloud-based distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Akamai is known for its technology to speed the deliver of web content, and the company said the acquisition will strengthen its portfolio of security solutions by protecting data centers and enterprise IP applications from distributed DDoS attacks. DDoS attacks are designed to take down web sites, and the most visible recent victim was Microsoft last week when Anonymous launched an apparent attack on the company.

Akamai CEO Tom Leighton acknowledged the growing DDoS risks in a prepared statement, noting that businesses are facing an "evolving threat landscape of attacks" on the Internet.

"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," said Akamai CEO Tom Leighton in a prepared statement.

"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," Prolexic CEO Scott Hammack said in a prepared statement.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2014.

Akamai also recently acquired Velocius Networks, a provider of quality of service (QoS) technology for optimizing application traffic across enterprise networks, in November.