Akamai Kona Site Defender

Kona Site Defender (KSD) is Akamai’s cloud-based Web Application Firewall (WAF) and DDoS protection solution that runs on the Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform.

It protects web apps from:

• OWASP Top 10 attacks
• DDoS (Layer 3, 4, 7)
• Bot traffic
• API abuse

Key Features (Very Important)

1. Web Application Firewall (WAF)

• Protects against:
  • SQL Injection
  • XSS
  • Command Injection
• Uses pre-configured + custom rules

 2. DDoS Protection

• Layer 3/4 → network floods
• Layer 7 → HTTP floods
• Uses:
  • Rate controls
  • Behavioral analysis
  • Traffic shaping

3. Bot Management (Integrated)

• Detects:
  • Bad bots
  • Scrapers
  • Credential stuffing
• Allows:
  • CAPTCHA
  • Bot scoring

4. Rate Limiting & Access Control

• Block excessive requests
• IP reputation filtering
• Geo-blocking

5. Adaptive Security Engine

• Learns application behavior
• Reduces false positives

6. Real-Time Visibility

• Logs, alerts, dashboards
• Integration with SIEM tools