Just an update to this question for the year 2017 and reality. The simple fact that an internet number is registered to Akamai does not in and of itself make it benign or link it in anyway to the legitimate companies mentioned or their products.
Its more likely that there is an issue to be concerned about if you are seeing suspicious network activity, poor overall performance or have had a problem with malware already. Assuming any connection to Apple simply because content comes from Akamai is and always has been entirely false.
An IP address that has been assigned to ANY customer of Akamai Technologies' will be registered with ARIN and displayed in a whois report as Akamai. Since they are directly allocated to customers for the distribution of various content (like media, files, or almost anything else that composes a webpage) it's not really Akamai who is responsible for the quality or content of the distributed content or aware really of what that content is.
Ironically, Akamai recently sued a competitor in federal court for copyright infringement which established a new precedent where a copyright infringer's business partners/joint ventures are all equally responsible for the a violation.
Bottomline on this is that content distribution networks are plagued with direct denial of service man in the middle attacks and the prevention of such is the focal point of all sales pitches of all leading CDN companies. This makes one think that it there is indeed the a very real possibility of an issue.
For example, I am noticing a 301 http redirect from Akamai GHOST when trying to obtain "firmware" downloaded directly from https://support.apple.com which ultimately uses a URL for the file that is not even https. All files on the support download website are obtained from URLs missing the openssl hyperlink text transfer protocol secure feature (the little green lock icon) making them by definition NOT secure.
These files are hosted by Akamai and just like all other less than secure network traffic are subject to corruption and malicious intents with a varying degree of ease. There's no simple way to tell what exactly is happening above but threat actors are constantly evolving and sharpening their tactics and skills to get access to your personal data and system's resources.
The fact that a "firmware" update download (which imho makes it very-software) is hosted via an http (not https) URL and then establishes a network connection to bing.com and two other IP addresses neither of which are to Apple with one belonging to Microsoft for direct allocation (meaning someone else who is anonymously using the IP address) and the other to Akamei for direct allocation on which over 50 known malware signatures detected by every single antivirus platform of any credibility is a major indication that Akamai is not to be blindly trusted as the naive or purposefully deceptive person in an Internet forum you've never met and who could be just about anyone above suggested, but what do I know.
For the those who are wondering the ultra-relevant question of if I "clicked anything in an email" no, no I did not click anything in an email and have never used an email account on this computer thank you, I greatly appreciate your in-depth knowledge of the issue and thoughtful consideration of this situation. Kindly disregard this entire comment and continue to surf the internets, pretzels in hand.
For anyone else, please see the malwr.com analysis to see the horrifying things this firmware update distributed by Akamai CDN and obtained by accessing https://support.apple.com directly does:
https://malwr.com/analysis/YThiNzAwZDJmNWU3NGNkYjhmZDUzODg3NDcwOTBhMzE/
http://threatcrowd.org/ip.php?ip=184.51.1.25
AlienVault - Open Threat Exchange
184.51.1.25 IP address information - VirusTotal
ccm.net domain information - VirusTotal
