Securing the public sector against Shadow AI with F5 BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator

Matt KanekoSenior Technical Marketing Manager

In the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape, government agencies and educational institutes are tasked not only with protecting users but also with safeguarding sensitive data, maintaining operational efficiency, and outpacing adversaries.

For the state, local, and education (SLED) market, balancing these demands can be a high-wire act. This blog post highlights how F5 BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator addresses critical Shadow AI security challenges while enabling organizations to unleash the true potential of their network environments.

Visibility, automation, and cyber-resilience

In today’s digital-first environment, networks are growing increasingly complex, connecting massive amounts of devices and applications, both on-premises and in the cloud. Agencies face the mounting challenge of monitoring all traffic effectively. Adding to the complexity are cyberthreats that continuously evolve—from nation-state actors to rapidly emerging ransomware strains.

SLED organizations face two critical challenges that impact their cybersecurity and operational integrity. First, encrypted traffic serves as a double-edged sword: while it enhances communication security, it also enables bad actors to exploit encrypted channels to launch attacks, potentially hiding malware within uninspected data flows if agencies lack adequate decryption capabilities.

Second, the rise of Shadow AI—the unauthorized use of AI tools and applications—poses significant risks, as employees or contractors who leverage unsanctioned solutions can inadvertently expose infrastructures to vulnerabilities, compliance violations, data leakage, and security breaches, creating a growing blind spot in organizational oversight.

Visibility without compromise

The key to staying ahead of malicious actors is gaining total visibility into network traffic. BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator helps cut through the noise by decrypting and orchestrating encrypted traffic in a way that doesn’t compromise privacy or performance.

BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator offers critical capabilities for addressing encrypted traffic challenges in SLED organizations by enabling comprehensive threat detection, scalability, and compliance assurance. It decrypts SSL/TLS traffic, allowing security tools such as firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions to detect malicious payloads hidden in encryption.

BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator prevents bottlenecks caused by the increasing volume of encrypted traffic by streamlining the decryption process, reducing latency, and optimizing communication between security tools. Additionally, it ensures compliance with regulatory frameworks such as Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), safeguarding sensitive data, maintaining privacy requirements, and empowering effective security measures.

By implementing BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator, agencies gain clear situational awareness without compromising existing security investments or network performance.

What makes Shadow AI dangerous?

Artificial intelligence can elevate productivity, streamline processes, and revolutionize decision-making. However, unauthorized Shadow AI tools can lead to data leakage, as users may unknowingly upload sensitive documents or operational information to unvetted platforms, exposing them to unknown third parties.

These tools often bypass established security standards, potentially harboring vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious actors. Moreover, the unchecked proliferation of Shadow AI can result in regulatory breaches, putting organizations at risk of liability for failing to comply with stringent regional or federal regulations regarding sensitive data handling.

How can Shadow AI be tamed?

The answer lies in creating an AI governance framework that allows organizations to embrace AI innovation without losing control over security. Following are four ways BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator can provide advanced AI-monitoring tools to provide the oversight needed for safe AI use.

1. Detects and blocks known AI tools: BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator detects malicious AI tools and blocks unauthorized AI communications before they become a problem.
2. Controls who may access AI tools, when, and how: BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator can be integrated with access control and global security policies to prevent unauthorized usage.
3. Prevents sensitive training data or model details from malicious exfiltration: BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator prevents sensitive training data and model details from malicious exfiltration by enabling visibility into encrypted traffic and enforcing strict security measures.
4. Offer user-coaching service extension: “User-coaching” is an alternative to outright blocking. It notifies and “coaches” a user when they attempt to access something that may violate local security policies.

This proactive stance against Shadow AI not only protects sensitive information but also allows SLED organizations to harness the legitimate potential of AI-based technologies, safely and purposefully.

A unified approach to Shadow AI mitigation

Imagine implementing BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator solutions into a unified security fabric for operational resilience. Here’s what that might look like for a SLED organization.

The integration of BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator offers enhanced data protection by fully decrypting and detect malicious AI Tool and block unauthorized AI communications then re-encrypted traffic, preventing malicious actors from hiding in plain sight. It also improves incident response by utilizing centralized traffic orchestration and enabling real-time monitoring of AI activity to uncover potential breaches with actionable insights.

Additionally, both BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator and AI monitoring solutions streamline compliance by aligning with stringent regulatory requirements, providing audit-ready logging and reporting for encrypted traffic and Shadow AI activities to ensure robust oversight and accountability.

Unlocking agility without sacrificing security

SLED agencies must continuously innovate to meet the increasing demands of a connected and AI-enhanced world. However, this innovation cannot come at the cost of security or compliance. By deploying BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator to improve visibility into encrypted traffic and taking proactive steps to mitigate Shadow AI risks, agencies can operate at peak efficiency, maintain compliance, and better safeguard their mission-critical data.

How are you preparing your infrastructure to meet these new challenges? With BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator and proactive Shadow AI governance, SLED organizations have the keys to unlock greater agility without sacrificing security.

Learn about F5 public sector solutions, and explore F5 education cybersecurity and IT solutions.

About the Author

Matt KanekoSenior Technical Marketing Manager

More blogs by Matt Kaneko