My name is Wanderley Siqueira Viana, and I have been with Bradesco for eight years. Today, I am a cybersecurity manager, mainly focused on security tools.
Technology evolves for better or for worse. So just as we use ChatGPT to conduct research, we use generative AI to do several things, attackers are also using it. They are using it more and more to carry out targeted attacks that are more advanced than what we are used to. It's a very dynamic environment. The attacks are evolving every day. So we looked for a solution that could be adapted to our environment, because the attacks are continually evolving.
Akamai has this characteristic; it absorbs all attacks before they arrive at my infrastructure, which reduces my overall infrastructure costs. Centralizing the solution with Akamai brought us visibility and resulted in significant operational gain. Security teams today receive not only more data that they need to analyze, they already receive ready-made analyses tailored to our business.
When we work with partners who can deliver solutions that are preventive measures, we have the flexibility to also look at other things. So now we have the ability to react faster. Not only is it easier to detect threats, it allows me to be proactive. Today, I block many things before they even happen.
We are significantly reducing our operating costs. The best advice I can give to all companies embarking on this journey is take a good look at yourself, understand your business, understand your journeys, and draw up your plan from there. And think beyond solutions; think about partnership.
We need partners who will stand by us in difficult times and in happy moments too. We need to be predictive and think like detectives. I believe that this is the big difference with Akamai. The involvement with the customer to understand the difficulties of our business. They understood our situation, our challenges, and worked tirelessly to demonstrate the value for our business.
Serving and protecting millions of customers
Bradesco is one of Latin America’s largest banks and a pillar of Brazil’s financial system. It serves millions of clients, manages a vast partner network, and manages thousands of APIs that power customer services and integrations. In a world where financial institutions are targets for cybercrime, Bradesco knows its reputation and very existence depend on trust. Every day, it must safeguard sensitive data and financial transactions while ensuring digital journeys remain simple and seamless.
With digital acceleration, mobile-first banking, and global expansion came rising threats — from AI-powered fraud attempts to stealthy behavioral exploits. Constantly evolving and seeking new controls, Bradesco reached out to long-time trusted partner Akamai. With intelligent protection, unified visibility, and a global platform that evolves as fast as attackers, Bradesco shifted from reactive to proactive security without compromising the customer experience.
Securing a digital-first banking ecosystem against AI-powered attacks
Bradesco’s challenge was clear: protect a sprawling ecosystem of applications and APIs while ensuring smooth, user-friendly experiences. “Effective security protects without getting in the way. The less friction in the customer journey, the better,” said Marlon Braz, Cybersecurity Senior Manager for Bradesco.
The bank had already invested in advanced fraud prevention through its AI-powered platform, which monitors transactions in real time to detect and block fraud. But the threat landscape was escalating. The bank increasingly observed the sophisticated use of AI for variable and “silent” exploits seeking to circumvent controls. “Threats have evolved with AI and become more sophisticated, making it essential to use solutions that see what traditional defenses miss,” explained Braz.
Bradesco understands the need for defenses that keep pace with innovation — both its own and that of malicious actors. “Precise insights are critical to blocking malicious activity. Staying ahead means monitoring closely and, whenever possible, anticipating attackers’ moves,” Braz said.
Choosing a security partner to match Bradesco’s needs and scale
“As a bank, security is the core of our business. We only exist because customers trust us to protect their data and money,” explained Wanderley Viana, Cybersecurity Senior Manager for Bradesco. That principle drove the bank to find a partner that could scale with its business, integrate with its complex environment, and continuously evolve with new protections such as advanced API defenses.
Akamai was a natural candidate. The bank had relied on Akamai content delivery services for more than 10 years, delivering applications closer to customers and reducing latency. Now it looked to Akamai’s security solutions to expand that foundation.
Over a rigorous six-month proof of concept, Bradesco tested different providers. The evaluation measured visibility, detection power, adaptability, and integration into Bradesco’s environment. Akamai stood out, detecting every red-team attack, adapting to complex attack paths, and providing the reach needed to serve millions of users.
“We chose Akamai because it integrated into our environment and best met our security criteria. Its threat intelligence enables us to act before risks emerge,” Braz said.
Bradesco deployed a unified Akamai stack: App & API Protector, API Security, Account Protector, and TrafficPeak. Together, they centralize monitoring, safeguard customer journeys, and identify anomalies before they become incidents — with built-in intelligence that evolves alongside threats.
App & API Protector and Account Protector enabled real-time, proactive defense
Deploying Akamai App & API Protector, which defends web applications and APIs against DDoS, bots, and application-layer attacks, enabled an even more proactive security model for Bradesco.
“Akamai allows us to analyze threat actor behavior before it becomes an attack. That changed the game: Now we can react quickly and even predict attackers’ next moves,” Viana said.
By absorbing threats at the edge, App & API Protector reduced Bradesco’s attack surface, improved performance, and lowered infrastructure costs. By caching static traffic and reducing server load, Bradesco cut costs while giving customers faster access.
“Akamai’s infrastructure minimized downtime risk, and considerably improved our users’ experience by ensuring availability across millions of daily transactions,” he continued.
Bradesco complements this protection with Akamai Account Protector. This solution prevents account abuse and takeover by using behavioral analysis, bot detection, and machine learning to identify and stop fraudulent activity throughout an account’s lifecycle.
API Security improved visibility and application journeys
Akamai API Security provides deep visibility into API traffic, mapping each API journey, detecting anomalies, and blocking malicious calls in real time. For Bradesco, it delivered the operational insight needed to strengthen defenses and improve applications.
“When critical situations arise, we can detect and resolve them quickly, avoiding impact on our customers,” Braz said.
That intelligence not only enhances security but also helps optimize user experiences. “We better understand the journey of each application. Plus, we can improve our applications if API vulnerabilities or configurations need to be addressed. Simply put, API Security enables us to improve the user experience,” he continued.
TrafficPeak centralized threat intelligence for faster response
Bradesco also implemented Akamai TrafficPeak, a platform that centralizes telemetry and applies AI-driven threat intelligence for faster detection and response.
With pre-analyzed, behavior-driven insights, Bradesco’s security teams optimize their time by directly accessing granular data associated with use cases rather than analyzing raw data. Instead, they act quickly on ready-made intelligence, which strengthens incident response and lowers operational costs.
Growing business on a secure, evolving foundation
Bradesco reduced its attack surface, improved response speed, and enhanced both security and user experience with Akamai. Just as important, it gained a business enabler.
Looking ahead, Bradesco is confident its defenses will keep evolving. With a partner that continuously adapts to the latest threats, the bank can maintain trust, support growth, and stay one step ahead of tomorrow’s attackers.
“With Akamai, we combine protection and performance. This enables us to innovate without compromising the user experience,” Braz concluded.
About Bradesco Bank
Banco Bradesco S.A. is a Brazilian financial services company headquartered in Osasco, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It is the third-largest banking institution by assets in Brazil and Latin America. It is also one of the 50 most valuable banks in the world.
About Akamai
Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence, and global operations team provide defense in depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications everywhere. Akamai’s full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver performance and affordability on the world’s most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence. Learn more at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai Technologies on X and LinkedIn.
