New F5 Integration Makes Protecting Your Apps and APIs a Lot Easier

Over the last 15 years cybercrime has continued to rise in sophistication and shatter records (not the good kind).

For example, March 2023 was the most prolific month for ransomware attacks in recent years—up 91% from February and 62% from March 2022. Moreover, the cost of cybercrime is expected to hit $8 trillion by the end of the year and reach $10.5 trillion by 2025.

The volume of encrypted traffic has also grown to ~90%, making it increasingly challenging for organizations like yours to avoid falling victim to cybercrime, as most threats and attacks are now masked by encryption. You may already be using solutions in your security stack to decrypt, inspect, and re-encrypt traffic. But the continuing growth and breadth of SSL/TLS encrypted traffic will likely cause your cybersecurity solutions to struggle and fail to decrypt traffic at scale while performing their assigned security functions at full potential.

Some might argue—given the current and possibly future macroeconomic conditions coupled with the spike in bad actors, automated threats, and evolving, sophisticated cybercrime masked by the ever-growing use of encryption—protecting apps and APIs is more important now than ever.

A perfect storm could be brewing, leaving your company, data, network, apps, and APIs at heightened risk. To ensure the future of your business, it’s critical to enable app and API security today that optimizes existing security investments and reduces costs.

Simplify Traffic Orchestration and Configuration to a Market-Leading WAF

The most recent BIG-IP release (v17.1) empowers BIG-IP Advanced WAF as a configurable security service within BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator, creating an integrated, better-together F5 security solution.

Now you can leverage BIG-IP Advanced WAF as a recognized security service directly through the BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator service catalog. With a simple click of a button, you can apply comprehensive WAF coverage within your security stack—and as a security solution in a custom dynamic service chain—with no service downtime or latency.

Image: BIG-IP Advanced WAF in the BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator service catalog

Through its policy-based routing, BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator will route the right traffic after it’s decrypted to the appropriate dynamic service chain, allowing BIG-IP Advanced WAF to apply its robust web and API security controls against the traffic. BIG-IP Advanced WAF ensures decrypted traffic attempting to access your app or API servers isn’t malicious.

Configuring BIG-IP Advanced WAF directly through BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator boosts defense in depth and combines rich policy-based traffic steering, dynamic security orchestration, and high-performance SSL/TLS decryption capabilities with market-leading and -recognized F5 WAF capabilities.

This simple configuration as part of the service catalog in BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator sets the F5 WAF portfolio apart. It also enables you to easily include and leverage additional F5 security products with BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator.

Using BIG-IP Advanced WAF as a service from the BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator service catalog also facilitates cost savings via consolidation through a combined security footprint, as well as reduces deployment complexity and administrative overhead.

Image: BIG-IP Advanced WAF as a service in a BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator service chain

Easily integrating with existing architectures, BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator centrally manages the SSL/TLS decrypt/re-encrypt function, so devices in your security stack—like BIG-IP Advanced WAF—can focus on what they were built to do: quickly discover and prevent hidden attacks at multiple stages. It also delivers high-performance encryption and decryption capabilities, context-based intelligence in handling traffic, and the creation of dynamic service chains, leveraging and maximizing your security services investment.

Protect Your Apps and APIs Now and into the Future

Deploying BIG-IP Advanced WAF as a service in BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator has never been easier. Start taking advantage of the full range of benefits from this flexible, better-together F5 security solution today.

• To begin, download the latest version of BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator (v11.0)
• Then, follow these easy step-by-step configuration instructions
• Learn more about how BIG-IP Advanced WAF secures apps and APIs
• Any questions or need help? Contact F5 Sales