Akamai President urges IBM, HP to boost security

Akamai Technologies Incorporated President David Kenny said United States companies such as Hewlett-Packard and International Business Machines Corporation need to be more vigilant with security.

Such businesses should be investing more time and money into security measures to keep pace with the growth of the Internet and the explosion of cloud technology, he said in an interview at Bloomberg’s New York headquarters.

Security is a “very fast-growing” part of Akamai, and most cyber attacks on the U.S. are coming from outside the country, he said.

“It’s not sexy,” Kenny said. “It’s like buying insurance. Really smart hackers have had a decade to figure out how to hack firewalls.”

Akamai, which provides server space that helps websites load faster, is striving to reach annual sales of $10 billion, Kenny said. The company is focusing on cloud security, or monitoring data delivered over the Internet. Akamai doesn’t have enough developers to keep up with the growth in cloud and the increasing customer demand, he said.

Akamai, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fell 4 cents to $30.22 at 12:30 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have declined 36 per cent this year.