Security Watch.(Akamai Technologies Inc)

Byline: Jeremy Quittner

Bigger Is Better

Sometimes it pays to be bigger than your enemies.

That certainly worked for the Internet infrastructure firm Akamai Technologies Inc., which helps companies transmit data and defends against denial-of-service attacks. Its retail customers include Amazon.com Inc., one of many companies that hackers went after this month in retaliation for cutting service to WikiLeaks.

Even as the websites of major companies like MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. were blocked during what the hackers called Operation Payback, Amazon.com avoided being shut down. Akamai learned how to adapt to denial-of-service attacks (in which a website is essentially knocked offline by receiving more traffic than it was designed to handle)in 2004 when some of its biggest customers, including Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., were shut down, according to a story in the Dec. 20 Boston Globe.

After the 2004 …