NTUA Meets Cyber Mandates with F5
Taiwan’s NTUA deployed F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) to comply with cybersecurity mandates, protect user credentials, and secure APIs. The solution enhanced service availability, automated threat mitigation, and simplified policy control, allowing the university to deliver secure, resilient digital experiences without increasing the operational burden.
Business Challenge
National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA), one of Taiwan’s most respected institutions for arts and culture, manages a range of public-facing digital platforms that support its academic programs, admissions, events, and community engagement. These online services are vital both for day-to-day operations and for shaping the university’s public image.
With the enforcement of stricter cybersecurity requirements under Taiwan’s Cyber Security Management Act (CSMA), NTUA was faced with the urgent need to upgrade its information security capabilities—especially for externally accessible websites. The university’s existing security infrastructure lacked the advanced protections necessary to defend against increasingly sophisticated threats or to meet the transparency, availability, and reporting standards now expected by regulators.
NTUA needed to find a solution that could safeguard critical online assets without compromising service accessibility or placing additional strain on internal teams. The goal was to establish a strong, centralized approach to web security that could deliver consistent protection, maintain uninterrupted digital access for students and faculty, and ensure full compliance with evolving regulatory obligations.
Solutions
NTUA sought a solution that could deliver comprehensive application protection, ensure service continuity, and streamline compliance without increasing operational overhead. The university needed a platform that could proactively detect and block threats, manage traffic efficiently, and enforce consistent security policies across critical web services such as admissions applications, academic portals, and student systems.
NTUA selected BIG-IP Advanced WAF and BIG-IP LTM as the foundation for its enhanced security architecture. The integrated F5 solution offered a scalable, centralized approach that aligned with both regulatory requirements and infrastructure needs. Automated threat detection and signature-based protection prevents a wide range of known and emerging attacks without manual rule updates. The platform’s Layer 7 visibility enables granular traffic inspection, allowing the detection and mitigation of malicious payloads before they can impact applications.
To support compliance with location-based access controls, NTUA implemented the F5 IP Intelligence Services and geolocation-based filtering capabilities of BIG-IP Advanced WAF to restrict high-risk traffic and reduce unnecessary exposure. The deployment also introduced centralized security policy enforcement to ensure consistent protection across digital services and simplify day-to-day management.
The entire solution was deployed as a BIG-IP Virtual Edition within NTUA’s existing infrastructure, streamlining implementation without additional hardware investment.
Results
Improve app and infrastructure resiliency
With BIG-IP Advanced WAF and BIG-IP LTM, NTUA ensures reliable uptime and seamless access to high-traffic digital services, supporting compliance with national availability standards. BIG-IP LTM capabilities further enhance reliability and performance by enabling intelligent load balancing, SSL offloading, and health monitoring—ensuring uninterrupted access to services during peak activity periods such as course registration and admission cycles.
Protect user login credentials
F5 bot protection and behavioural analytics block automated login threats to help protect login portals and sensitive student interfaces from credential stuffing and brute-force attacks.
“With the deployment of the F5 solution, our university now has a robust foundation to ensure cybersecurity while maintaining service availability,” says Frank Mei, Chief Information Officer at NTUA.
Secure APIs across hybrid services
As NTUA expands its API ecosystem, the F5 solution provides consistent on-premises and cloud protection—using deep visibility and access control to prevent misuse, breaches, and compliance risks. This and other security enhancements strengthen the organization’s overall security posture.
Improve operational efficiency
The solution keeps student and faculty credentials safe while reducing the need for manual security intervention. Mei says, “The F5 solution has significantly reduced the effort required for daily operations.”
- Improve app and infrastructure resiliency
- Protect user login credentials
- Secure APIs across hybrid services
- Improve operational efficiency
- Inconsistent security policy control
- Stricter national security regulations
- Exposure to automated login attacks