F5 Unveils New Capabilities To Address Enterprise Security Needs in an App-Driven World

 F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) today announced at F5 Networks’s ASEAN Anticipate 2016 new enhancements to F5’s security capabilities that will give customers industry-leading features that support traditional data center, cloud and hybrid architectures. The enhancements will enable customers in Asia Pacific to more effectively ensure application security, resolve critical app protection gaps and strengthen anti-fraud defenses.

The proliferation of Internet-facing applications has led to pervasive threats on business-critical web services, along with an increase in the sophistication of attacks. Today’s announcement reflects a number of new security capabilities, with highlights including:

• The introduction of BIG-IP 12.1 software, delivering leading application services with more sophisticated security policies for on-premises and hybrid cloud environments
• Enhancements to industry-leading web application defense via BIG-IP Application Security Manager^â„¢ (ASM) with unique, customizable bot detection methods that enable detailed analysis, and more extensive device ID tracking, to secure business-critical applications with advanced threat protection and visibility over application and location
• Accelerated blacklisting of malicious IPs in hardware at high rates for layer 7 threats, providing coverage until feed lists are updated with BIG-IP ASM
• Visibility into HTML 5 WebSocket connections for comprehensive policy protection where other WAFs fail. While WebSocket represents a standard for bi-directional real time communication between servers and clients, there is often concern around security. Updates in BIG-IP ASM will address this concern and enable customers to focus on the application deployment with less worries.
• Enhanced capabilities that automatically mitigate L3–7 attacks upstream in the ISP realm, stop evasive application use of random ports, and control SSH channel user-initiated actions with simple custom policy enforcement with BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager^â„¢ (AFM). Whether on-premise or in a software-defined data center (SDDC), BIG-IP AFM mitigates threats based on more attack details than traditional network firewalls, protecting organizations from the most aggressive volumetric distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks before they can reach the data center.
• Expanded support for Azure environments, including integrated F5 web application firewall (WAF) capabilities in Azure Security Center, to ensure the same level of services in the cloud as in the data center.
• With the release of BIG-IP version 12.1 software, no other Application Delivery Controller (ADC) vendor offers F5’s level of programmability across traditional, cloud, and hybrid architectures.

“More information, including sensitive data, is being accessed via applications by users within and outside the corporate network. With the challenge of enforcing security policies across hybrid infrastructure environments, fragmented identities and decentralized applications introduce significant risk for vulnerabilities. A security approach that centers around protecting the network and the devices that are connected to it is no longer enough. Applications and access to those apps are becoming the new perimeter, protecting them and having the ability to detect breaches and respond quickly defines the future state of security,” said Emmanuel Bonnassie, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific, F5 Networks.

“Firms in Asia are increasingly aware of the significant risks posed by advanced cyber attacks, but the cyber security gap must be addressed. Our customers in the Asia Pacific region face advanced cyber attacks at a rate more than double the average in the US. It is critical that governments and businesses have technologies in place to quickly detect and respond to these advanced attacks. FireEye’s partnership with F5 helps address this important challenge for organizations,” said Eric Hoh, President of Asia Pacific Japan at FireEye.

BIG-IP version 12.1 software will be available in the second quarter of calendar year 2016. Please contact a local F5 sales office for additional product and service availability information pertaining to specific countries.