NDHU Strengthens Cybersecurity with F5
NDHU modernized its digital infrastructure to secure more than 100 web apps, improve performance, and comply with CSMA mandates using F5 solutions.
To comply with Taiwan’s Cyber Security Management Act (CSMA) and meet growing digital demands, NDHU deployed F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). As a result, the university secured more than 100 apps, improved uptime, gained real-time threat visibility, and enabled a scalable, secure, and efficient digital environment.
Business challenge
Established in 1994, National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) is one of Taiwan’s most prestigious public institutions. It is recognized across Asia and globally by the QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, and U.S. News and World Report Best Global Universities list. As a liberal academic leader and one of only seven institutions appointed by the European Union (EU) Center as Taiwan’s official think tank for EU studies, NDHU plays a vital role in advancing both national education and digital transformation.
As its academic reputation and digital footprint expanded, NDHU sought to modernize its IT infrastructure to support growing student services and ensure secure, seamless digital experiences. However, its legacy environment—spanning over 100 web applications—operated in silos and lacked centralized visibility. This left core systems such as student portals and academic platforms vulnerable to threats such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). Frequent performance bottlenecks during peak academic periods, such as during course registration, added to user frustration and placed increased strain on a lean IT team.
The urgency to act grew with the enforcement of Taiwan’s CSMA, which classified public universities like NDHU under the Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) framework. This mandated strict compliance, including system classification, the implementation of ongoing cybersecurity maintenance plans, and rapid incident reporting and remediation timelines.
Beyond regulatory pressure, NDHU faced increasing risks from fragmented system oversight, limited real-time threat monitoring, and inefficiencies that threatened its ability to deliver a secure, scalable, and high-performing digital environment for students, staff, and faculty. With mounting complexity across its digital ecosystem and national mandates reshaping cybersecurity expectations, NDHU knew it needed a more cohesive and future-ready approach. In particular, as its web assets grew more popular and complex—and thus more susceptible to attacks—the organization required a robust solution to maintain confidentiality, integrity, and availability in line with CSMA’s tiered cybersecurity control requirements. This included securing APIs, protecting user credentials, and mitigating known application vulnerabilities across the growing digital footprint.
In this context, NDHU set out to upgrade its cybersecurity measures into a strategic enabler of digital trust, compliance, and continuity.
Solution
The university adopted F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF as its strategic first line of defense with application delivery support from BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). The decision was supported by a strong F5 reputation in Taiwan’s public sector and proven local implementation partners. A phased deployment began with priority academic systems before rolling out across more than 100 web applications.
Within days, NDHU gained real-time application-layer visibility and automatic interception of malicious activity—meeting the CSMA standards for rapid detection and incident containment across a broad range of modern web threats. Centralized traffic management and SSL control delivered by BIG-IP LTM further improved application performance and infrastructure resilience, especially during peak periods. The F5 solution also governed API traffic, allowing NDHU to secure and manage API endpoints more effectively.
Results
Advanced threat protection
NDHU now enjoys real-time visibility and protection across more than 100 web applications, with the F5 BIG-IP platform automatically detecting and mitigating critical threats—including SQL injection, XSS, cryptographic failures, server-side request forgery (SSRF), and security misconfigurations.
The university’s compliance with CSMA goes beyond regulatory checkboxes, embedding cybersecurity as a strategic institutional responsibility and pivoting cybersecurity from a strictly IT concern to a foundational element of the university’s digital strategy. This reinforces its ability to innovate securely, transforms cybersecurity into a campus-wide priority, and helps the organization meet the evolving expectations of students, staff, and regulators.
Improved uptime and user experience
With the traffic optimization and centralized control of the F5 solution, the university eliminated latency issues during traffic surges caused by course registration or other high-activity times. This ensures stable, high-performance access for students and faculty during critical academic periods.
Streamlined operations and stronger compliance posture
The integrated F5 solution reduced manual overhead for the NDHU IT team while enabling centralized monitoring, faster incident response, and continuous security governance required for CSMA compliance.
- Detect threats in real time
- Comply with CSMA mandates
- Improve uptime during peak loads
- Centralize traffic management
- Reduce IT operational overhead
- Limited visibility into web threats
- Siloed legacy application systems
- Latency during course registration period
- Pressure to comply with CSMA