Linode

Linode, LLC
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryCloud computing, web services, Internet hosting services
Founded2003; 21 years ago (2003)
HeadquartersPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Christopher Aker
  • (Founder and CEO)
ProductsCloud-hosting provider
Virtual private servers
Revenue$100 million
Number of employees
200+
ParentAkamai Technologies
ASN
Websitewww.linode.com

Linode (/ˈlɪnoʊd/)[1] was an American cloud hosting provider that focused on providing Linux-based virtual machines and cloud infrastructure.

From the time of its launch in 2003, Linode provided virtual private server (VPS) hosting.

Linode was acquired by Akamai Technologies in February 2022 for $900 million.[2]

History

[edit]

Linode (a portmanteau of the words Linux and node) was founded in 2003 by Christopher Aker. Aker is a graduate of Full Sail University in Florida. The focused on providing Linux-based virtual servers to small and medium-sized businesses. The company moved its headquarters to Galloway, New Jersey in 2008. Linode relocated to the historic Corn Exchange National Bank building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2018.

On February 15, 2022, Akamai Technologies announced its intent to acquire Linode for $900 million. Akamai's founder and CEO Tom Leighton stated that it sought to "combine Linode's developer-friendly cloud computing capabilities with Akamai’s market-leading edge platform and security services".[3]

Products and services

[edit]

As of November 2019, Linode provided several kinds of virtualization-based computing services with options to meet specific customer needs, such as high memory requirements, dedicated CPU resources, virtual machines with direct access to GPUs. Linode provided services in network-based storage and backup servers. [4][5]

In September 2013, Linode launched Longview, a system performance monitoring package for Linux that allows users to view performance metrics of their instances from the Linode Cloud Manager.[6] In late October 2019, Linode launched its S3-Compatible Object Storage service to enable customers to store large, unstructured data. On November 11, 2019, at CNCF KubeCon, Linode announced the availability of its managed Kubernetes engine service.[7][8]

Security incidents

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The accounts of eight Linode customers that held Bitcoin cryptocurrency were compromised in March 2012.[9] Roughly 40,000 bitcoins were stolen.[9]

Hack The Planet (HTP) accessed Linode's web servers in 2013.[10][11][12] The group exploited a technical vulnerability in Adobe's ColdFusion application server.[10][11] Linode said that HTP could not decrypt any financially sensitive information and reset all account passwords.[10][12] Linode announced plans to introduce two-factor authentication for its services in May 2013.[13]

Starting Christmas Day 2015 and continuing until January 10, 2016, Linode was hit by large and frequent DDoS attacks, which were being caused by a "bad actor" purchasing large amounts of botnet capacity in an attempt to significantly damage Linode's business.[14] Linode was the victim of another severe DDoS attack over the 2016 Labor Day weekend.[15]

Starting April 2023 and up to October 2023, Linode and Hetzner traffic for the largest Russian XMPP messaging service (jabber.ru) was intercepted through a Man-in-the-middle attack.[16]

References

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  1. ^ "Open Source Is Critical To Linode: Christopher Aker, Founder & CEO". TFiR. June 19, 2019. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  2. ^ "Akamai To Acquire Linode to Provide Businesses with a Developer-friendly and Massively-distributed Platform to Build, Run and Secure Next Generation Applications". Akamai. 2022-02-15.
  3. ^ Lardinois, Frederic (2022-02-15). "Akamai acquires Linode for $900M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-02-15.
  4. ^ "Block Storage Volumes". Linode. Retrieved 5 Aug 2021.
  5. ^ "Backups". Linode. Retrieved 2023-02-16.
  6. ^ "Linode Launches Longview, Takes Deep Look at Data Center and Server Performance". www.techzone360.com. Retrieved 2022-12-22.
  7. ^ "Linode Managed Kubernetes Now Available". Linode. 2019-11-19. Retrieved 2019-11-24.
  8. ^ "It's clear to Linode: There's a market to bring cloud services to small companies". New Jersey Business Journal. 2013-11-04. Retrieved 5 Aug 2021.
  9. ^ a b Leyden, John. "Linode hackers escape with $70K in daring bitcoin heist". The Register. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
  10. ^ a b c Lee, Michael. "VPS host Linode issues customer-wide password reset". ZDNet. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
  11. ^ a b Dumon, Marv. "Amazon Launches Cloud Computing Certification Program - Page 2". Technorati. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
  12. ^ a b Leyden, John. "Web host Linode, hackers clash over credit-card raid claim". The Register. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
  13. ^ Bandoim, Lana. "Two-Step Authentication Grows in Popularity". Yahoo! Voices. Archived from the original on 9 June 2013. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
  14. ^ Forster, Alex. "An update from Linode about the recent DDoS attacks". Linode. Retrieved January 1, 2016.
  15. ^ Cimpanu, Catalin (5 September 2016). ""Catastrophic" DDoS Attack Pummels Linode Servers over Labor Day Weekend".
  16. ^ "Encrypted traffic interception on Hetzner and Linode targeting the largest Russian XMPP (Jabber) messaging service". Retrieved November 2, 2023.
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