TEPCO HD Fortified Digital Resilience for Japan

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO HD), Japan’s largest electric utility, serves 28 million customers across the Tokyo metropolitan area while navigating rising energy demand, frequent natural disasters, and escalating cyberthreats. To ensure uninterrupted access to critical information and protect systems that support Japan’s economy, it partnered with Akamai. Using App & API Protector along with Edge DNS, it strengthened digital resilience, absorbed massive traffic surges, and defended against sophisticated attacks — without compromising availability or public trust.

TEPCO HD supplies electricity to roughly one-third of Japan’s population — a responsibility measured not just in megawatts, but in public confidence. When typhoons or earthquakes strike, millions of people turn to TEPCO HD’s digital channels simultaneously, searching for outage updates and signs of recovery. Behind the scenes, internal systems must simultaneously support nonstop coordination with contractors, government agencies, and neighboring utilities racing to restore power.

“Resilience — the ability to maintain stable operations under any circumstances — is essential in both IT systems and business processes,” said Tomomichi Seki, Managing Executive Officer, CIO, and CISO for TEPCO HD.

Yet traditional infrastructure alone could not absorb the sudden, unpredictable surges that accompany natural disasters. It also could not fully defend against a growing class of cyberthreats: DDoS attacks and ransomware designed to disrupt critical services and sow social anxiety.

“If our systems or networks were compromised and Tokyo’s power supply were to stop, it would effectively halt the Japanese economy,” Seki said. “It is a scenario we must prevent.”

When TEPCO HD evaluated potential partners, the decision went beyond technical specifications. For the utility, availability is fundamentally about sustaining public trust when it matters most. During disasters and emergencies, people rely on TEPCO HD not only for electricity, but for timely, accurate information. “As a critical infrastructure operator, we prioritize public trust and resilience above all else,” Seki said. “We seek partners who share those values.”

The company needed assurance that its digital systems would hold under pressure — when attacks intensify, traffic surges, and the consequences of failure extend far beyond IT. Akamai stood out for its ability to protect services at scale, even in the most demanding conditions.

That confidence was grounded in Akamai’s proven history of defending against large-scale DDoS attacks while keeping critical services online. Seki emphasized that this record of performance, paired with Akamai’s guiding principles, made the choice clear.

“Akamai’s mission — ‘protecting and powering life online’ — closely aligns with our responsibility to support the physical lives of tens of millions of citizens every day,” he said.

TEPCO HD strengthened its digital defenses with Akamai App & API Protector (including Akamai Managed Security Services) and Edge DNS to protect systems that support Japan’s energy backbone. Together, these services form a layered defense designed to withstand both natural disasters and deliberate attacks on critical infrastructure.

App & API Protector serves as the core of TEPCO HD’s protection against DDoS attacks and web application threats, including bot-driven and API-based attacks that continue to grow in scale and sophistication. “Akamai automatically applies defenses based on the latest threat intelligence, even as attack techniques continue to change,” said Seki. “This significantly reduces the operational burden of tracking, updating, and managing security rules ourselves.”

Edge DNS plays an equally vital role. During emergencies, stable name resolution becomes a lifeline — ensuring that citizens can reach outage updates, recovery information, and customer services when they need them most. “The assurance that our DNS services will not be disrupted or become a target of attacks is extremely important,” he continued.

When natural disasters strike, traffic to TEPCO HD’s public websites can surge far beyond normal levels in a matter of minutes. Akamai’s globally distributed edge network disperses and absorbs that demand, preventing overload at origin servers and keeping critical information available when anxiety is highest.

At the same time, Akamai separates legitimate traffic from malicious activity. “We have detected many DDoS attempts against our website and customer portal,” Seki said. “Akamai’s protection has been extremely effective in safeguarding our services.”

As a result, TEPCO HD’s critical information sites and customer portals have remained accessible throughout emergency situations — delivering timely, reliable information without interruption. “Akamai’s platform and operational expertise help us fulfill our responsibility as a provider of social infrastructure during emergencies,” he continued. “Achieving this level of availability and scalability would be extremely difficult with in-house infrastructure alone.”

TEPCO HD’s corporate philosophy — “developing the future of energy” — demands continual progress. As the company invests in power grid infrastructure to support rising demand from data centers and generative AI, its digital requirements are expanding in parallel. AI adoption is driving sharp increases in API traffic, real-time processing needs, and exposure to new attack surfaces.

“Traditional perimeter-based security alone is no longer sufficient. We believe Akamai is well prepared to address these emerging requirements by combining edge processing capabilities, visibility, and security,” Seki explained.

With AI-driven traffic and automated attacks accelerating, TEPCO HD must continually strengthen its defenses. “We see Akamai as a long-term partner that supports our technology journey and will continue to play an important role going forward. By continuously advancing its platform and threat intelligence, Akamai enables us to confidently take on new technological challenges,” Seki concluded.