Akamai Guardicore Segmentation Delivers 152% Return on Investment, Says New Total Economic Impact Study

Akamai Technologies, the cloud company that powers and protects life online, has released a new study showing Akamai Guardicore Segmentation delivered a total benefit of USD $9.6 million over three years and paid for itself (i.e., payback period) in less than six months for a composite organization based on interviewed customers. Forrester’s The Total Economic Impact™ Of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation also found it delivered a 152% return on investment (ROI) and saved more than USD $2.9 million by reducing or eliminating legacy systems like traditional firewalls.

Findings from the study include:

• Recouped USD $4.1 million over three years. Organisations that use Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can minimise their attack surface, leading to reduced downtime and an increase in revenue retention from 1.4% to 2% over a three-year period, respectively.
• Incident management effort reduced by 70% by year 3. With network microsegmentation with Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, the composite organisation’s security operations (SecOps) and network operations (NetOps) teams can detect and respond to potential threats faster and more effectively.
• Streamlined operations require fewer cybersecurity resources. With Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, the composite’s SecOps and NetOps teams easily visualize microsegmentation, implement policy in a single dashboard, and simplify security posture and validation. This resulted in an organisation needing 33% fewer cybersecurity professionals, which led to savings of nearly USD $1.4 million over three years.
• More than USD $2.9 million saved by reducing or eliminating legacy systems. With Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, the composite organisation manages its existing firewalls more granularly by reducing its east-west firewalls footprint, improves network visibility, and ensures continued network and security

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation Provides Even More Benefits 

Study respondents also reported unquantified benefits, including the ability to integrate Akamai Guardicore Segmentation with existing security tools like security information and event management (SIEM) and endpoint detection and response (EDR). Respondents also noted advantages like using professional services to identify additional use cases, improved job satisfaction for cybersecurity professionals, and greater productivity for the IT team.

Respondents reported that one of the features that they were looking for in a microsegmentation solution was for it to be deployed more quickly with out-of-the-box templates, especially compared with firewalls, while having the flexibility of grouping and labeling and allowing for the ability to customise policies over time.

Customers chose Akamai Guardicore Segmentation to prevent lateral movement of threats and reduce attack surface, enhancing overall security. Customers found that with this solution, they were able to improve the visibility into their network traffic and interactions between systems to detect and respond to potential threats more effectively. With it, customers were better able to protect legacy systems critical for their operations but were previously vulnerable to modern cyberthreats.

“By implementing Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, organisations can reduce their incident management efforts, streamline operations to require fewer cybersecurity resources, and improve visibility and control—all while realising a 152% return on investment,” said Ofer Wolf, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Enterprise Securitym at Akamai. “This study emphasises how Akamai is helping our customers contain threats and stay ahead of attackers while protecting both their systems and data.”