Duo News & Press

The solution eliminates the need for traditional remote user Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and significantly improves security for organizations

Ann Arbor, Mich., April 11, 2018 - More than ever, organizations across the world are enabling their workforce to do business from anywhere with their personal devices. This is evidenced by data released today by Duo Security, the leading provider of zero-trust security with Duo Beyond. Analyzing one billion user logins to customer work applications, Duo found that nearly 43 percent came from outside of the corporate office and network - making it clear that the traditional security perimeter is quickly becoming irrelevant.

To give organizations a remote access VPN alternative and allow them to evolve to shifting working habits, Duo and Akamai, (NASDAQ: AKAM), the largest and most trusted cloud delivery platform, today introduced a technology integration partnership for remote workers. Through this partnership, every time a user tries to access an application delivered by Akamai’s Enterprise Application Access, Duo verifies the trust of the user and the device in real-time.

In just the last year, Duo’s data shows the number of authentications involving mobile devices accessing corporate applications have more than doubled, and the average number of cloud-based applications customers are protecting increased by more than 20 percent.

While this remote work trend has created unmatched flexibility and helped organizations attract top talent globally, it has introduced a major challenge for IT and security teams. Organizations are struggling to securely enable remote access because legacy virtual private networks (VPNs) are complex to use and inadequate for properly controlling remote access in a mobile world. According to Forrester’s 2017 Global Business Technographics Security Survey, 41 percent of breaches in the past 12 months were incidents within the organization or involved business partners/third-party suppliers.

A Zero-Trust Ecosystem for Remote Workers

“Traditional remote access VPN solutions create significant complexities and risks for enterprise IT in today’s world where multi-cloud and access for employees, partners and contractors is the norm,” said Tim Knudsen, VP Product for Akamai’s Enterprise Division. "The integration of Akamai Enterprise Access (EAA) with Duo makes it simple and safe by replacing network-based access with application-specific access where customers can verify trust of the device and user in real-time at the time of the access without requiring a client.”

With Duo and Akamai, even the largest enterprises can onboard new external users - contractors, business partners, remote full-time workers - in minutes instead of days or weeks.

Duo Beyond and Enterprise Application Access allow organizations to continue modernizing their workforce while giving users convenient and secure access to only the applications they need to do their job - ultimately preventing attackers with stolen credentials or compromised devices from accessing sensitive applications. This is very different from the legacy ‘castle and moat’ approach that remote access VPNs provide.

“Security needs to evolve beyond the traditional perimeter when it comes to protecting remote access, especially with a growing remote workforce, a new generation of endpoints, and increased cloud adoption,” explained Jon Oberheide, Duo Security’s Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder. “Enabling secure access regardless of network location is a core principle of Zero Trust and BeyondCorp architectures, and our partnership with Akamai will help customers embrace this new security model.”

For more information, please visit https://duo.com

About Duo Security

Duo Security helps defend organizations against data breaches by making security easy and effective. Duo Beyond, the company's category defining zero-trust security platform, enables organizations to provide trusted access to all of their critical applications, for any user, from anywhere, and with any device. The company is a trusted partner to more than 10,000 customers globally, including Dresser-Rand, Etsy, Facebook, K-Swiss, Random House, Yelp, Zillow, Paramount Pictures, and more. Founded in Michigan, Duo has offices in Ann Arbor and Detroit, as well as growing hubs in Austin, Texas; San Mateo, California; and London, UK. Visit duo.com to find out more.

About Akamai

As the world’s largest and most trusted cloud delivery platform, Akamai makes it easier for its customers to provide the best and most secure digital experiences on any device, anytime, anywhere. Akamai’s massively distributed platform is unparalleled in scale with over 200,000 servers across 130 countries, giving customers superior performance and threat protection. Akamai’s portfolio of web and mobile performance, cloud security, enterprise access, and video delivery solutions are supported by exceptional customer service and 24/7 monitoring. To learn why the top financial institutions, e-commerce leaders, media & entertainment providers, and government organizations trust Akamai please visit www.akamai.com, blogs.akamai.com, or @Akamai on Twitter.