Vivo Uses F5 Solutions for the New Vivo Secure Web Application Service

Vivo, a Brazilian telecom provider with $11 billion in revenue in 2015, launched its own cloud-based security service for small- and mid-sized businesses. The new Vivo Secure Web Application uses F5 technology to protect customers’ web applications.

Business Challenges

Vivo was developing a standard, pre-formatted service to increase security for companies with various profiles and web applications. Vivo needed its web application security product to maintain quality on a large scale, while operating independent of the customer’s IT team.

Solution

Vivo used a proof of concept to test which technology would best meet their customers’ needs. F5 BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM) provides native and continually-updated support for a large number of web application protocols. Additionally, BIG-IP ASM easily scales, allowing Vivo to support a large number of business.

Benefits

Vivo’s new service is comprehensive, secure, and blocks attackers from accessing customers’ critical data and systems.

Application protocol templates improve implementation

For Guilherme Gonçalves Cintra, Manager of Information Security Products of Vivo Brazil, one of the key benefits of BIG-IP ASM is the fast implementation process for every Vivo customer. “This happens because F5 developed templates that pre-configure the web application firewall to support applications such as Microsoft Office 365, Totvs or SAP, Linux portals, etc. The pre-configured and constantly-updated scripts help us maximize project time and optimize the delivery of security services to our customers.” The templates ensure that the service’s firewall is configured correctly so it can distinguish between a legitimate request and a potential attack, reducing the number of false positives that may harm the development of the web application or the customer’s business. The F5 scripts are pre-configured and updated regularly to help Vivo develop and activate the security policy for any customer, within any business vertical, in just a few days.

Adapting to customers’ needs and expertise

The Vivo Secure Web Application is built with powerful, complex technology. Knowing that many of their customers lack the technical experience to properly support the service, Vivo developed a consultative approach. Each business’s project is managed by a Vivo professional who has been trained and qualified by F5.

Big-time security for smaller businesses

BIG-IP ASM is installed in Vivo’s Security Operation Centers (SOC) and is available within the Vivo Secure Web Application service. The Vivo Secure Application meets the needs of companies with four web applications, capable of performing up to 600 transactions per second (TPS)—up to companies with 10 web applications operating at 1600 TPS. This flexibility gives small- and mid-sized businesses access to security services that were previously seen only in large companies. According to Alfredo Caballero Diaz, Advanced Data Manager at Vivo, Vivo Secure Web Application is a strategic offering, made possible through a long-term alliance between F5 and Vivo. “With F5 we have much more than a client/supplier relationship—we have a strong business partner.”