Outbrain builds full-stack advertising suite for the open internet

The challenge

As a leading technology platform, Outbrain connects businesses with engaged audiences, to drive better marketer results, using AI and machine learning to predict user interest and propensity to convert. The company wants readers everywhere in the world to have a positive, responsive experience that promptly provides relevant, interesting content recommendations. “If our content discovery engine were 200 milliseconds late in getting content on a publisher’s page, we’d lose our reader, so performance is critical to engagement,” says Kobi Seviliya, vice president and chief information security officer (CISO) of Outbrain.

The company’s reputation also depends on the availability and security of the Outbrain network and the security of its ad content. “We're a global company, and as such, we're in the eye of the public as well as the eye of attackers. We constantly see attacks, such as denial of service (DDoS) attacks, people trying to run vulnerability scans, and other attacks against our infrastructure,” Seviliya says. “At the same time, we also need to make sure no one infiltrates our network or takes us down. And we need to ensure that ad traffic comes from humans, not bots or artificial traffic used to generate ad revenue.”

With a positive relationship with Fastly for content delivery services since 2015, Outbrain reached out to Fastly in 2021 to protect its network from attacks, too.

The solution

For delivery, Outbrain uses Fastly Delivery and Microsoft Azure for origin infrastructure and global load balancing. By using Fastly’s network pre-integrated with Azure in specific regions, Outbrain ensures high-speed data transfer with minimal latency and distributes content globally without incurring any egress charges from Azure. This ensures Outbrain has the same reach and high-performance worldwide. “We are able to take our content and spread it across the world with much better performance than if we hosted it ourselves,” Seviliya says.

The addition of Fastly security services, Next-Gen WAF Premier, with a capacity to handle 450 requests per second (RPS), protects Outbrain’s applications. In addition, Fastly’s Managed Security Service provides security expertise and rapid incident response. The combined security solution saves time, improves security, ensures performance, rapidly mitigates attacks, and provides valuable insight.

Customer experience and company reputation are protected

Fastly’s Next-Gen WAF provides visibility into attacks on the Outbrain network, which enables Seviliya’s team to analyze and mitigate attacks. At the same time, Fastly security experts are available to help isolate problems for his team. With hundreds of millions of incoming requests daily, Seviliya appreciates the expert support against fraudulent traffic and DDoS attacks by Fastly’s security team, which cuts down the bad traffic and protects the experience of Outbrain’s customers. “With Fastly, we get the protection we need, and our network engineers don’t have to constantly monitor and mitigate attacks. This efficiency advantage enables us to scale the business,” Seviliya says.

Security at the edge improves network performance

The security solution further enhances performance and ensures availability. “We block all the malicious traffic and attack signals at the edge, which prevents overload of our infrastructure, since attack traffic does not reach our infrastructure. Outbrain keeps working and repels millions of attacks daily.”

Attacks mitigated in minutes

Analysis and insight into past attacks on Outbrain’s network allows Seviliya’s team to anticipate and prepare for future attacks. “We can stay ahead of threats and ensure our systems are ready,” Seviliya says. “For example, during past U.S. elections, we have seen patterns that led us to anticipate bigger attacks on our publishers who provide election news. With this knowledge, our network security engineers can shift to monitor, analyze, and mitigate attacks when it's most needed.”

Security team enables business growth and demonstrates value

Seviliya cares deeply about making security seamless in ways that supports business growth. “Fastly helps us take a positive approach to security in ways that helps grow the business. I encourage our engineers and infrastructure teams to offload their security concerns to me and our security tools, so they can focus on growing the business and providing great customer service.”

To communicate security capabilities and demonstrate the value of his security resources, he uses the dashboards, drill-downs, and analytics provided by the Next-Gen WAF. “Fastly provides valuable information that helps me demonstrate to executives and senior managers the value of our team and tools. I can present security trends, correlate attack trends with world events, and be ready for vulnerabilities during high-risk occasions.”

Key takeaway

Through Fastly’s edge cloud platform, with its global portfolio of content delivery, security, and other solutions, Outbrain ensures a positive experience for advertisers, content creators, publishers, and the company’s own employees. “Working with Fastly ensures our security team remains a growth promoter, not a limitation,” Seviliya concludes.