Latest news with #Akamai
Techday NZ
3 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Cast AI unveils Database Optimizer to boost cloud efficiency
Cast AI has announced the launch of its Database Optimizer (DBO), an autonomous caching solution designed to improve performance and efficiency for cloud-hosted databases. The Database Optimizer offers a fully automated, plug-and-play caching layer that does not require application changes or manual intervention, according to Cast AI. The solution is aimed at simplifying database operations, specifically for DevOps teams, platform engineers and cloud database administrators who often face challenges with traditional, labour-intensive caching solutions. Dekel Shavit, Senior Director of Cloud Engineering at Akamai, commented on the product's approach, stating, "Autonomous caching is one of the most effective ways to optimize read-heavy workloads, and Cast AI's approach is brilliantly executed. DBO removes the need for manual tuning while delivering real-time performance gains and cost reductions. It's a strong addition to the Cast AI platform." According to Cast AI, the DBO agent automatically analyses data queries to detect repeat patterns and delivers instant cached responses, leading to a substantial reduction in load on primary databases. The company reports that this can result in a reduction of up to 90% of customer database hits, allowing organisations to downscale database resources and eliminate the need for read replicas. All of these optimisations can be achieved without code changes, manual cache management or other engineering overhead. Key features highlighted by the company include simplified database optimisation through actionable insights and turnkey deployment, a claimed tenfold performance improvement due to near-instant data delivery, and the capability to automate cache management in a no-code fashion. Julius á Rógvi Biskopstø, Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder at Flowcore, described the practical benefits observed from adopting Cast AI's DBO, saying, "One of the toughest challenges with database caching—especially in distributed systems like ours—is cache invalidation. But with Cast AI's DBO, it just works right out of the box. Our workloads are highly cacheable because we separate reads from writes, so integrating with the write channels was straightforward—even in clustering mode." Biskopstø continued, "We're now seeing cache hit rates of 80–90%, which is outstanding. On I/O-bound servers, cutting database hits by 90% has a huge impact—it saves money and significantly improves performance. Our services were already pretty fast, but DBO shaved off an additional 100 milliseconds, which makes a noticeable difference. If you're thinking about adding a cache, DBO is an easy choice." Laurent Gil, Co-founder and President at Cast AI, stated that DBO is designed to make database operations more efficient and cost-effective. Gil said, "Databases are one of the most expensive components in the cloud. It was a natural addition to our Application Performance Automation platform. Our DBO agent increases performance and reduces cost by caching any queries for which it detects a repeat pattern., DBO radically simplifies caching, slashes expenses, and requires no changes to how your apps are built. APA is the future of autonomous computing —high performance, zero overhead." The Database Optimizer is positioned by Cast AI as part of its broader Application Performance Automation platform, which leverages machine learning algorithms to automate cloud resource optimisation, cost management and performance enhancement.
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Forbes
New Windows Server 2025 Attack Compromises Any Active Directory User
New Windows Server 2025 vulnerability confirmed. Although you are far more likely to read about vulnerabilities impacting the Windows operating system, including those that have long since reached end-of-support status such as Windows 7, this doesn't mean that Windows Server users are not in the crosshairs of threat actors. Far from it, and not just legacy versions either, as security researchers reveal a new, and trivial to implement, Windows Server 2025 vulnerability that could compromise any Active Directory user. Here's what you need to know. Privilege escalation vulnerabilities are among the worst you can be faced with, as, rather obviously, they enable a successful attacker to do way more than they should be able to given the lack of permissions they started with. Yuval Gordon, a senior security researcher at Akamai Technologies, has exclusively shared details of a particularly concerning privilege escalation vulnerability impacting Windows Server 2025. Not only because, as Gordon explained, it allows an attacker to 'compromise any user in Active Directory,' but also as it 'works with the default configuration, and is trivial to implement.' If you thought things couldn't get any worse, you'd be wrong: no patch is currently available. Akamai has named the vulnerability and associated exploit as BadSuccessor, and confirmed that it abuses the delegated Managed Service Account feature introduced with Windows Server 2025. 'In 91% of the environments we examined,' Gordon said, 'we found users outside the domain admins group that had the required permissions to perform this attack.' BadSuccessor might be trivial to implement, but the consequences of a successful attack are far from the same. Full attack flow, showing all steps needed to have a BadSuccessor. A key feature of dMSA is the ability to migrate existing and non-managed service accounts by seamlessly converting them into dMSAs, and it's this that is the issue. 'By abusing dMSAs, attackers can take over any principal in the domain,' Gordon said. All an attacker needs to be able to exploit the BadSuccessor vulnerability is a seemingly benign permission on any organizational unit in the domain. Here's the real killer though: as long as you have one Windows Server 2025 domain controller, your domain doesn't even need to be using dMSAs at all, the exploit will work anyway. I would advise every Windows Server administrator to read the full report in its entirety, and as a matter of some urgency. In the meantime, I spoke with Yuval Gordon who reiterated that BadSuccessor is not only 'so dangerous because the attack is so simple,' but added that Akamai researchers were 'surprised that we were first to discover it.' The only good news, such as it is, would be that there is no evidence to conclusively show that BadSuccessor has been exploited by attackers in the wild at this point, but given that 'most organisations aren't currently monitoring the relevant events,' Gordon said it's hard to say for certain . Gordon recommended that organizations and admins need to identify which users have the specific permissions that make this attack possible, and, having done so, review and remove unnecessary permissions. 'We're releasing a PowerShell script alongside the blog post to help with that,' Gordon told me, so that would be a good starting point. 'It highlights exactly which users have risky access so defenders know where to focus,' Gordon concluded. I reached out to Microsoft for a statement, and a spokesman said: 'We appreciate Akamai for identifying and responsibly reporting this issue. After careful investigation, this case was rated as a Moderate severity that does not meet our bar for immediate servicing, as the technique requires elevated user permissions to be successful. We will look to address this issue in a future update.' Microsoft also said that for BadSuccessor to be successful, an attacker would require access to the msds-groupMSAMembership attribute of the dMSA. This attribute allows the user to utilize the The attacker needs write access to this attribute, which allows them to specify a user, such as an administrator, that the dMSA can act on behalf of. All users of Windows Server 2025 are advised to take action and protect against the threat until Microsoft issues a fix.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Akamai Cloud Helps Eliminate Egress Costs for IRIAM
Keeping real-time performance while lowering infrastructure costs TOKYO, May 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai Technologies GK has succeeded in reducing the outbound communication costs (egress costs) for the streaming servers of IRIAM Inc. to almost zero through its cloud service, Akamai Cloud. The move to Akamai Cloud has also contributed to reducing the overall cost of the streaming servers from one-third to less than one-tenth of the total cost of the cloud infrastructure. IRIAM's key feature is its community-oriented structure, with close engagement between live streamers (who stream their content using the live-streaming platform) and listeners. To create streams that simulate talking face-to-face, IRIAM created a communication environment that prioritizes real-time performance and minimizes communication lag as much as possible. IRIAM aims to constrain lag to 0.1 seconds, and has independently developed and operates a communication method called the motion-live method. As the number of users increases and the business grows, however, IRIAM's network costs are increasing. Network costs accounted for more than one-third of the cost of using cloud infrastructure. These network costs were becoming an issue, and after Akamai started offering cloud services, IRIAM reviewed the Akamai Cloud offerings, and realized that Akamai was able to resolve the issue. The result of migrating streaming servers to the Akamai Cloud that was most appreciated by IRIAM was the cost savings from Akamai's proprietary pricing structure, which includes network usage fees as part of the server instance usage fees. For example, an entry-class "Shared 4 GB" instance has no network transfer charge for up to 2 terabytes. In IRIAM's case, outbound communication per server is limited to staying within 2 terabytes, so virtually all streaming servers can be operated with the only real cost being the server instance. Even if the limit is exceeded, the extra cost is extremely low, at US$0.005 per 1 GB (as of April 2025). The amount of network traffic used on the previous cloud was 200 terabytes per month, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Moving to Akamai Cloud has removed these costs from IRIAM's fees. Since then, network traffic has increased to approximately 300 terabytes per month as IRIAM's services have grown, but all traffic still operates within the free quota that comes with each streaming service instance. After the migration, the network costs as part of the entire infrastructure were reduced from one-third to almost zero, and IRIAM's streaming server usage fees were reduced by approximately 50% on top of that. In addition to the cost savings, IRIAM also highly praised the ease of migration and the service stability. Akamai Cloud also supports API management, allowing the migration to be completed by simply switching the streaming server to the Akamai Cloud while maintaining the existing virtual machine management mechanism as is. CPU and memory utilization is stable and transmission errors on the network are rarely observed. IRIAM launched its service in the United States in November 2024. The attentive support and the fast response times are attractive features of the service, and its stability and reliability, coupled with the ease of global deployment, make it a great help for IRIAM's future business developments in the United States. Hirokazu Higuma, Managing Director of Akamai, said, "We're pleased that IRIAM Inc., who have created a new culture on the internet, has adopted Akamai Cloud. We will continue to support IRIAM's further business growth, starting with their global expansion. Akamai serves its customers more by delivering ever faster, safer, and more stable internet solutions, and by empowering and safeguarding people's online lives." Read the Akamai Cloud product brief to learn more. About AkamaiAkamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence, and global operations team provide defense in depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications everywhere. Akamai's full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver performance and affordability on the world's most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence. Learn more at and or follow Akamai Technologies on X and LinkedIn. CONTACT: Akamai PR, akamaiPR@ View original content: SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Firing on All Cylinders: Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) Q1 Earnings Lead the Way
The end of the earnings season is always a good time to take a step back and see who shined (and who not so much). Let's take a look at how content delivery stocks fared in Q1, starting with Fastly (NYSE:FSLY). The amount of content on the internet is exploding, whether it is music, movies and or e-commerce stores. Consumer demand for this content creates network congestion, much like a digital traffic jam which drives demand for specialized content delivery networks (CDN) services that alleviate potential network bottlenecks. The 4 content delivery stocks we track reported a strong Q1. As a group, revenues beat analysts' consensus estimates by 2.2% while next quarter's revenue guidance was in line. Luckily, content delivery stocks have performed well with share prices up 14.2% on average since the latest earnings results. Founded in 2011, Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) provides content delivery and edge cloud computing services, enabling enterprises and developers to deliver fast, secure, and scalable digital content and experiences. Fastly reported revenues of $144.5 million, up 8.2% year on year. This print exceeded analysts' expectations by 4.8%. Overall, it was an exceptional quarter for the company with an impressive beat of analysts' EBITDA estimates. Fastly achieved the biggest analyst estimates beat of the whole group. Unsurprisingly, the stock is up 36.8% since reporting and currently trades at $8.22. Is now the time to buy Fastly? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it's free. Founded in 1999 by two engineers from MIT, Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM) provides software for organizations to efficiently deliver web content to their customers. Akamai reported revenues of $1.02 billion, up 2.9% year on year, in line with analysts' expectations. The business had a strong quarter with an impressive beat of analysts' EBITDA estimates and EPS guidance for next quarter topping analysts' expectations. Akamai scored the highest full-year guidance raise among its peers. Although it had a fine quarter compared its peers, the market seems unhappy with the results as the stock is down 9.2% since reporting. It currently trades at $77.73. Is now the time to buy Akamai? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it's free. Initially started as a hardware appliances company in the late 1990s, F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) makes software that helps large enterprises ensure their web applications are always available by distributing network traffic and protecting them from cyberattacks. F5 reported revenues of $731.1 million, up 7.3% year on year, exceeding analysts' expectations by 1.7%. Still, it was a mixed quarter as it posted EPS guidance for next quarter missing analysts' expectations. Interestingly, the stock is up 6.3% since the results and currently trades at $281.59. Read our full analysis of F5's results here. Founded by two grad students of Harvard Business School, Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) is a software-as-a-service platform that helps improve the security, reliability, and loading times of internet applications. Cloudflare reported revenues of $479.1 million, up 26.5% year on year. This result beat analysts' expectations by 2.1%. Aside from that, it was a mixed quarter as it also logged a solid beat of analysts' billings estimates but EPS guidance for next quarter missing analysts' expectations. Cloudflare delivered the fastest revenue growth but had the weakest full-year guidance update among its peers. The stock is up 22.9% since reporting and currently trades at $153.11. Read our full, actionable report on Cloudflare here, it's free. Thanks to the Fed's series of rate hikes in 2022 and 2023, inflation has cooled significantly from its post-pandemic highs, drawing closer to the 2% goal. This disinflation has occurred without severely impacting economic growth, suggesting the success of a soft landing. The stock market thrived in 2024, spurred by recent rate cuts (0.5% in September and 0.25% in November), and a notable surge followed Donald Trump's presidential election win in November, propelling indices to historic highs. Nonetheless, the outlook for 2025 remains clouded by potential trade policy changes and corporate tax discussions, which could impact business confidence and growth. The path forward holds both optimism and caution as new policies take shape. Want to invest in winners with rock-solid fundamentals? Check out our Hidden Gem Stocks and add them to your watchlist. These companies are poised for growth regardless of the political or macroeconomic climate. Join Paid Stock Investor Research Help us make StockStory more helpful to investors like yourself. Join our paid user research session and receive a $50 Amazon gift card for your opinions. Sign up here.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Akamai Announces Pricing of Upsized Offering of Convertible Senior Notes
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) ("Akamai"), the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online, today announced that it has priced its private offering of $1.5 billion in aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2033. The notes will be sold only to persons reasonably believed to be "qualified institutional buyers" pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"). In addition, Akamai has granted the initial purchasers of the notes an option to purchase up to an additional $225.0 million in aggregate principal amount of notes on the same terms and conditions. The sale of the notes is expected to close on May 19, 2025, subject to customary closing conditions. The offering was upsized from the previously announced offering of $1.35 billion aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes. The notes will be senior unsecured obligations of Akamai and will mature on May 15, 2033, unless earlier converted or repurchased in accordance with their terms. The notes will bear interest at a rate of 0.25% per year, payable semiannually in arrears on May 15 and November 15 of each year, beginning on November 15, 2025. The notes will be convertible prior to the close of business on the business day immediately preceding January 15, 2033 only under certain circumstances and will be convertible thereafter at any time prior to the close of business on the second scheduled trading day immediately preceding the maturity date regardless of these circumstances. Upon conversion, Akamai will pay cash up to the aggregate principal amount of the notes to be converted and pay or deliver, as the case may be, cash, shares of its common stock or a combination of cash and shares of common stock, at Akamai's election, in respect of the remainder, if any, of Akamai's conversion obligation in excess of the aggregate principal amount of the notes being converted. The conversion rate will initially be 10.7513 shares of Akamai's common stock per $1,000 principal amount of notes, which is equivalent to an initial conversion price of approximately $93.01 per share of Akamai's common stock, subject to adjustments in certain events. The initial conversion price represents a premium of approximately 20% to the $77.51 per share closing price of Akamai's common stock on May 14, 2025. Akamai estimates that the net proceeds from this offering will be approximately $1,479.1 million (or approximately $1,701.3 million if the initial purchasers exercise their option to purchase additional notes in full), after deducting the initial purchasers' discounts and estimated offering expenses payable by Akamai. Subject to costs and expenses related to the convertible note hedge and warrant transactions and share repurchases described below, Akamai intends to use the remaining net proceeds from the offering to repay approximately $250.0 million in borrowings outstanding under its five-year senior unsecured revolving credit facility and repay at maturity a portion of its $1.15 billion outstanding aggregate principal amount of 0.375% Convertible Senior Notes due 2027, which mature on September 1, 2027, and/or to pay cash amounts due upon any earlier conversion thereof. Akamai intends to use $239.1 million of the net proceeds from this offering to pay the cost of the convertible note hedge transactions described below (after such cost is partially offset by the proceeds to Akamai from the sale of warrants pursuant to the warrant transactions described below). If the initial purchasers exercise their option to purchase additional notes, Akamai expects to sell additional warrants to one or more of the initial purchasers and/or their respective affiliates and/or other financial institutions (the "Option Counterparties") and use a portion of the net proceeds from the sale of such additional notes, together with the proceeds from the additional warrant transactions, to enter into additional convertible note hedge transactions with the Option Counterparties. Akamai also intends to use approximately $300.0 million of the net proceeds from the offering to repurchase shares of its common stock from purchasers of the notes in the offering in privately-negotiated transactions effected through one or more of the initial purchasers or their affiliates. The purchase price per share in such transactions will equal $77.51, the closing price per share of Akamai's common stock on May 14, 2025. Holders may require Akamai to repurchase for cash all or any portion of their notes on May 15, 2031 (the "optional repurchase date"), if the last reported sale price of Akamai's common stock on the trading day immediately preceding the business day immediately preceding the optional repurchase date is less than the conversion price, at an optional repurchase price equal to 100% of the principal amount of the notes to be repurchased, plus any accrued and unpaid interest to, but excluding, the optional repurchase date. In addition, if Akamai undergoes a fundamental change prior to the maturity date of the notes, subject to certain conditions and limited exceptions, holders may require Akamai to repurchase for cash all or any portion of their notes at a fundamental change repurchase price equal to 100% of the principal amount of the notes to be repurchased, plus any accrued and unpaid interest to, but excluding, the fundamental change repurchase date. In connection with the pricing of the notes, Akamai entered into convertible note hedge transactions and warrant transactions with the Option Counterparties. The convertible note hedge transactions will cover, subject to anti-dilution adjustments substantially similar to those applicable to the notes, the same number of shares of Akamai's common stock that will initially underlie the notes, including any notes purchased by the initial purchasers pursuant to their option to purchase additional notes. The convertible note hedge transactions are expected generally to reduce the potential dilution with respect to Akamai's common stock upon conversion of the notes and/or to offset any cash payments Akamai is required to make in excess of the principal amount of converted notes, as the case may be. The warrants will cover, subject to customary anti-dilution adjustments, the same number of shares of Akamai's common stock. The warrant transactions could separately have a dilutive effect with respect to Akamai's common stock to the extent that the market price per share of Akamai's common stock exceeds the strike price of the warrants, unless Akamai elects, subject to certain conditions, to settle the warrants in cash. In connection with establishing their initial hedge of the convertible note hedge and warrant transactions, the Option Counterparties and/or their respective affiliates expect to purchase shares of Akamai's common stock and/or enter into various derivative transactions with respect to Akamai's common stock concurrently with or shortly after the pricing of the notes. This activity could increase (or reduce the size of any decrease in) the market price of Akamai's common stock or the notes at that time. In addition, the Option Counterparties and/or their respective affiliates may modify their hedge positions by entering into or unwinding various derivatives with respect to Akamai's common stock and/or purchasing or selling Akamai's common stock or other securities of Akamai in secondary market transactions following the pricing of the notes and prior to the maturity of the notes (and are likely to do so during any observation period related to a conversion of the notes or following any repurchase of the notes by Akamai). This activity could also cause or avoid an increase or a decrease in the market price of Akamai's common stock or the notes, which could affect the ability of holders to convert the notes and, to the extent the activity occurs during any observation period related to a conversion of the notes, it could affect the amount and value of the consideration that holders receive upon conversion of the notes. This press release is being issued pursuant to Rule 135c under the Securities Act and shall not constitute an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any of these securities (including the shares of Akamai's common stock, if any, issuable upon conversion of the notes). Any offer of notes was and will be made only by means of a private offering memorandum. The notes and the common stock issuable upon conversion of the notes, if any, have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements. The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements with respect to Akamai's expectations to complete the offering of the notes, its use of proceeds from the offering and the effect of the concurrent stock repurchase and the convertible note hedge and warrant transactions. There can be no assurance that Akamai will be able to complete the notes offering on the anticipated terms, or at all. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the terms of the notes and the offering, risks and uncertainties related to whether or not Akamai will consummate the offering, the impact of general economic, industry, market or political conditions and other factors that are discussed in Akamai's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC. In addition, the statements in this press release represent Akamai's expectations and beliefs as of the date of this press release. Akamai anticipates that subsequent events and developments may cause these expectations and beliefs to change. However, while Akamai may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Akamai's expectations or beliefs as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. About Akamai Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence, and global operations team provide defense-in-depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications everywhere. Akamai's full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver performance and affordability on the world's most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence. Contacts: Christine SimeoneMark Stoutenberg Media RelationsInvestor Relations Akamai TechnologiesAkamai Technologies AkamaiPR@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.
