F5 Keeps Customers Protected with New IP Intelligence Service

Business Wire

Monday, June 25th 2012

F5 BIG-IP solutions now offer cloud-based service to guard against malicious activity, emerging threats, and IP address-related attacks

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced a cloud-based service that enables organizations to safeguard their infrastructures by detecting and stopping access from IP addresses associated with malicious activity. By identifying relevant IP addresses and leveraging intelligence from cloud-context security solutions, F5’s new IP Intelligence service combines valuable information on the latest threats with the unified policy enforcement capabilities of the BIG-IP^® application delivery platform. The BIG-IP system’s ability to seamlessly combine subscription-based services from F5 with external services provides customers with a compelling new way to enhance overall security.

“Organizations are looking for security solutions that can dynamically synthesize information from a variety of sources to give infrastructures the maximum level of protection against sophisticated cyber attacks,” said Mark Vondemkamp, Sr. Director, Product Management, Security at F5. “At the same time, enterprises must preserve the flexibility to customize their systems and add safeguards as network and access conditions change, and as new types of threats emerge. F5’s IP Intelligence service enables customers to pool disparate threat detection capabilities, block malicious IP addresses, and tailor performance to specific needs by leveraging F5’s powerful BIG-IP Application Security Manager^™ and iRules^® technologies.”

Enhancing Security Posture while Lowering Overall Security Spend

Companies delivering today’s rich Internet content are exposed to a variety of attacks from rapidly changing IP addresses and other variables. In addition, inbound and outbound botnet traffic and malware activity can penetrate security layers and consume precious resources. Typically, organizations deploy point solutions such as IP reputation services to block malicious activity and sites, but unless these solutions are integrated with an Application Delivery Controller, they are not able to offer comprehensive, dynamic protection. Plus, enterprises can reduce their overall security spend by taking advantage of the BIG-IP solution’s ability to deliver unified services on a single platform.

Leveraging a frequently updated list of threat sources and high-risk IP addresses, F5’s new IP Intelligence service delivers contextual awareness and analysis of IP requests to identify threats from multiple sources across the Internet. The service draws on the expertise of a global threat-sensor network and IP address database to detect malicious activity, and can offer protection throughout the application delivery infrastructure with F5’s unified BIG-IP architecture.

F5’s new IP Intelligence service enables customers to: