CIS expands partnership with Akamai to protect state and local governments

Cyberattacks often begin with an unsuspecting user clicking on a link that redirects them to a harmful site containing malware. Even the best employee training won’t prevent every mistake. The best way to stop those mistakes from becoming costly cyber incidents is to block those sites automatically.

Since 2020, The Center for Internet Security (CIS) and Akamai have teamed up to offer Malicious Domain Blocking and Reporting (MDBR), a program that has blocked more than 10.7 billion requests to known or suspected harmful sites for state and local governments. Now, additional features are being offered through MDBR+ to customize the user experience in blocking malware, ransomware, and phishing attacks.

“We are pleased to expand our partnership with Akamai to deliver the MDBR+ service to enhance the web security of state and local government organizations,” said Gina Chapman, EVP, Sales and Business Services at CIS. “MDBR+ harnesses Akamai’s extensive visibility into the global threat landscape, combined with CIS’s robust SLTT-specific threat database, and offers security teams real-time visibility and custom configuration options to increase their cybersecurity defenses.”

The additional features include:

• Full access to a cloud-based management portal– enables management and custom configuration from any location at any time
• Real-time reports on blocked activity– see where blocked activity is occurring across your IT environment
• Protection for off-network devices– protect laptops and mobile devices wherever they are connected to the internet

“MDBR has been hugely successful at proactively blocking threats that could have significantly impacted the ability of SLTT organizations to deliver public services,” said Patrick Sullivan, VP, CTO of Security Strategy for Akamai. “MDBR+ will allow SLLT security teams to customize their environments and policies to enable employees to work where they need to while quickly enhancing their organization’s security posture, identify compromised devices and protect devices used off-network.”