PayPal: Powering Secure, Reliable Digital Payments at the Edge

• Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

• National Security & Defense
• Telecommunications

• Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
• Tamper Detection

• System Integration

PayPal, a global payment solutions giant with a user base of 300 million, faced challenges in maintaining security, optimal performance, and scalability. The company's ambitious vision to democratize financial services and empower people and businesses globally required a strong focus on security and fast, reliable user experiences. However, the company faced everyday threats such as website spying, DDoS attacks, and exploits, which necessitated robust security measures. Additionally, with a global footprint as expansive as PayPal’s, latency was a significant challenge. Data sometimes had to make long round trips, which could negatively impact user experience and repeat business.

PayPal is a global payment solutions giant with a user base of 300 million. The company has an ambitious vision to democratize financial services and empower people and businesses to join and thrive in the global economy. PayPal is committed to providing secure, fast, and reliable digital payment solutions. The company has a global footprint and faces challenges such as security threats and latency issues. However, PayPal is dedicated to innovating and using technology to overcome these challenges and deliver dynamic user experiences at scale.

PayPal turned to edge engineering to address these challenges. The company implemented an edge cloud platform, which provided an opportunity to better achieve security and user experience goals. To enhance security, PayPal enabled WAF and other related security controls, extending their existing security measures. These features provided real-time visibility, allowing the team to identify, respond to, and analyze threats as they happen, thereby minimizing risk and disruption. To address latency issues, PayPal set up a direct fiber connection between their origin servers and a Fastly shield POP with Origin Connect. This reduced the number of hops, effectively reducing latency, increasing network availability, and powering faster response times. PayPal also used Fastly’s smart network to avoid internet weather issues and maintain reliable operations. Real-time logging provided visibility and flexibility to fine-tune configurations based on the service in question, user needs, and internet performance.

• The implementation of edge engineering and an edge cloud platform has significantly improved PayPal's operational efficiency and user experience. The real-time visibility enabled by these solutions has empowered the team to proactively identify and respond to security threats, minimizing risk and disruption. The direct fiber connection and smart network have effectively reduced latency and increased network availability, ensuring faster and more reliable user experiences. Furthermore, the real-time logging and visibility have provided the flexibility to fine-tune configurations based on various factors, enabling PayPal to deliver optimal performance. The company sees the edge as a key part of their future growth and is committed to continuously innovating to meet changing consumer behavior and technology usage.

• Reduced latency through direct fiber connection, improving user experience
• Increased network availability through reduction of data hops
• Real-time visibility into security threats, enabling immediate response and risk mitigation