F5 Delivers Unified Web Application Security Solutions

PRESS RELEASE

SEATTLE, APRIL 28, 2009 -- F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), announced availability of its v10 release of the BIG-IP' Application Security Manager (ASM) web application firewall. BIG-IP ASM is aimed at enterprises and service providers that need to consolidate their infrastructure and more confidently secure, deploy, and optimize applications.

The new version of BIG-IP ASM provides enhanced attack protection, threat mitigation, and application visibility. It is available as a standalone device or as a software module on BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, F5's market-leading Application Delivery Controller. In addition, BIG-IP ASM is now available on F5's high-performance VIPRION' hardware platform, further improving scalability and performance for large organizations as well as content and service providers.

Operating on F5's TMOS' architecture, BIG-IP solutions unify application security, traffic management, and acceleration capabilities onto a single device to realize up to a 50 percent bandwidth reduction and up to a 10x user performance increase. By providing application services on a unified platform, BIG-IP solutions eliminate the need for multiple appliances, lowering capital and operating expenses while increasing the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of critical web applications and processes. As a key component of F5's vision of unified application and data delivery services, BIG-IP ASM provides an integrated web application security solution.

"Workforce efficiency greatly depends on how quickly and securely data and resources are delivered to users," said Jon Oltsik, Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. "By understanding the context of network, application, and user interactions, dynamic infrastructure components like F5's BIG-IP solutions can better optimize the services users require. Specifically, the recent enhancements to BIG-IP Application Security Manager provide 'baked-in' intelligence and flexibility to help enterprise organizations customize their IT environments and do more with less."

New and enhanced BIG-IP v10 capabilities enable organizations to:

Improve Protection Against New and Emerging Threats

BIG-IP ASM now offers enhanced protection against layer 7 denial of service (DoS), cross-site scripting, brute force, and SQL injection attacks, among many others. By providing advanced and integrated security on a flexible, scalable platform, organizations can more easily address application security requirements as new threats emerge or as their infrastructure evolves.

Minimize Capital Outlay and Operating Expenses through Consolidation and Automated Safeguards

As a single, centralized point of policy enforcement, BIG-IP ASM provides comprehensive monitoring and visualization capability. System-wide security and performance metrics enable informed decision-making, and ensure efficient IT resource utilization. BIG-IP ASM includes built-in, automated security policies that can easily be activated to comply with industry security standards and organizations' individual security requirements. And F5's customizable iRules capability empowers organizations to tailor and automate additional security policies for their application delivery environments. The new version of BIG-IP ASM also monitors URL server latency, providing an additional tool for ensuring an optimal end-user experience.

Seamlessly Integrate with Third-Party Solutions for Rapid Deployment and Lower TCO

F5 works closely with leading security and application vendors to ensure rapid, low-impact deployment. Integration with Splunk provides additional visibility into attack and traffic trends for threat analysis and forecasting purposes. Integration with Secerno's DataWall offers customers a comprehensive solution for application and database security. In addition, F5's Application Ready Templates provide pre-configured policies that enable BIG-IP solutions to optimize and secure popular applications from Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and more.

"With BIG-IP solutions, we've been able to reduce server overhead by 60 percent while integrating security and optimization capabilities across a unified Application Delivery Networking system," said Ian Jennings, Technical Director at Fortify Security, a leading UK center of excellence on Secure Application Delivery. "BIG-IP ASM helped us identify existing website vulnerabilities and detect numerous brute force attacks. In addition to blocking these and other threats, the sophisticated reporting tools of the BIG-IP solution provide us with the insight to refine our security policies and recode parts of our website to mitigate further risks."

"As organizations increase their reliance on web-accessible applications and data, their security risks increase exponentially, ranging from denial of service to inadvertently exposing sensitive data," said Mark Vondemkamp, Director of Product Management, Security at F5. "With our unified security and acceleration solutions in place, F5 customers can confidently introduce and enhance application security without sacrificing IT agility or the user experience."

Availability

BIG-IP version 10 software and the new version of BIG-IP ASM are available today. Application Ready Templates are available for no additional fee. For more information on the new BIG-IP release, please visit www.f5.com/products/big-ip/v10.html.

For additional content and guidance on how to get the most out of BIG-IP v10, please visit the v10 page of DevCentral, F5's global online community comprised of more than 40,000 application developers, IT architects, and networking professionals, at http://devcentral.f5.com/v10.

For additional information on Fortify Security's use of F5 solutions, view the case study and listen to the customer podcast on F5's website. For more information on Fortify Security, please visit www.fortifysecurity.com.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), focused on ensuring the secure, reliable, and fast delivery of applications. F5's flexible architectural framework enables community-driven innovation that helps organizations enhance IT agility and dynamically deliver services that generate true business value. F5's vision of unified application and data delivery offers customers an unprecedented level of choice in how they deploy ADN solutions. It redefines the management of application, server, storage, and network resources, streamlining application delivery and reducing costs. Global enterprise organizations, service and cloud providers, and Web 2.0 content providers trust F5 to keep their business moving forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

F5, BIG-IP, Application Security Manager, ASM, Local Traffic Manager, VIPRION, TMOS, and iRules are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including those identified in the company's filings with the SEC.