Akamai's Q3 gets boost from security services

Akamai third quarter results were strong courtesy of its security and cloud performance services.

The company reported third quarter earnings of $76 million, or 43 cents a share, on revenue of $584 million, up 6 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings for the quarter was 68 cents a share.

Wall Street was looking for third quarter non-GAAP earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $571.88 million.

The most telling thing about Akamai's report is that the company has largely become one best known as a content delivery network to a firm focused on security.

Akamai's performance and security unit delivered revenue of $345 million, up 19 percent from a year ago in constant currency. The cloud security unit had revenue of $95 million, up 46 percent from a year ago.

Judging from Akamai's statement it's clear that the company is optimistic about its security business. Akamai CEO Dr. Tom Leighton said recent cyberattacks demonstrate, enterprises "need solutions capable of defending against massive botnets that are exploiting millions of online devices." Leighton added that Akamai's network architecture gave it advantages to push security innovation.

Akamai last month had a upfront view of a massive distributed denial of service attack. Security blog Krebs on Security was hit with a DDoS attack that hit 665 Gbps in size.

The company offered its services pro bono via its Prolexic unit. Akamai was able to keep Krebs online, but the company had to take the site off its network. Akamai's costs were spiraling and Krebs noted that he "likely cost them a ton of money today."

On the bright side, Akamai got to test its security network against a massive attack. That R&D on the fly has some real value.