Case Study: MailChimp achieves uninterrupted global growth and DDoS protection with Akamai Technologies

MailChimp Pursues Global Growth with Akamai Protection Solutions in Place

MailChimp, a fast-growing email marketing provider serving more than 9 million users and sending roughly 800 million emails a day from three U.S. data centers, faced frequent DDoS attacks that threatened site and service availability. The company needed comprehensive, scalable protection and outside security expertise so it could avoid downtime and the cost of building out global infrastructure and staffing.

MailChimp partnered with Akamai and deployed managed Kona Site Defender, Prolexic Routed and Client Reputation (along with Fast DNS/Ion), gaining 24/7 attack readiness, automated DDoS mitigation, a web application firewall and malicious‑IP blocking. The result: attacks were thwarted, internal teams were relieved of major security burdens, MailChimp avoided expanding its data‑center footprint, and it stayed focused on delivering new product features.

MailChimp

Joe Uhl

VP of Operations