F5 launches AI assistant to boost network security control

F5 has unveiled a new AI-powered assistant for its F5 Distributed Cloud Services, designed to enhance visibility and control for network and security teams.

The AI assistant aims to support SecOps and NetOps teams by providing capabilities to monitor network activity, understand attack patterns, and apply recommended actions effectively.

This tool is specifically designed to streamline the oversight and security of applications by aiding in the management of complex tasks more efficiently, thus maintaining a strong security posture.

F5's latest innovation is trained on event data from the company's extensive global network, aiming to assist teams in simplifying their security tasks. This development comes in response to the evolving challenge of managing applications and APIs across increasingly complex and distributed network frameworks. According to F5's 2024 State of Application Strategy report, 88% of organisations now use a hybrid model. It was reported that more than a third now operate across six different models, a significant increase from one-fifth in 2023.

Pranav Dharwadkar, Vice President of Product Management at F5, emphasised the growing complexity of maintaining apps and APIs, noting, "There have never been more apps and APIs to maintain, nor a wider surface area of deployment environments to monitor. More than ever, SecOps and NetOps teams require the right tools to ensure they are on top of threats to their network. Our AI assistant has been built around their needs."

Highlighting the unique capabilities of the AI assistant, Dharwadkar added, "The AI assistant can be where human teams cannot, it draws on insight and training data from a wide spectrum of organisations facing the same threats, and it is fully customisable, allowing engineers to draw exactly the reporting and insight they want from it, as well as prompting them with suggested actions."

Key features of the AI assistant include suggested queries for scrutinising site health and posture across multi-cloud deployments, the creation of custom queries using simple or complex prompts, and advanced summaries of security events ranked by attack style and risk. It also enhances response strategies by helping users identify and analyse malicious traffic patterns during zero-day threats. Furthermore, it provides actionable recommendations that enable teams to quickly identify escalating threats and implement mitigating actions like exclusion rules or blocking malicious addresses.

The AI assistant automates ongoing security and networking tasks to improve operational efficiency, enabling teams to focus on more strategic initiatives. This tool is powered by the F5 AI Data Fabric and offers a natural language interface, allowing current users of F5 Distributed Cloud Services to access it directly from the existing console.

Dharwadkar commented on the current challenges faced by network and security teams, stating, "We recognise how stretched network and security teams currently are and the AI assistant will serve as an intelligent partner for them. This can help to reduce response times from days to minutes, ensuring that critical assets are protected, and breaches are swiftly addressed."

Dharwadkar further noted, "This is just one part of our commitment to integrate AI with our application security and delivery solutions, helping customers wherever they are in their AI journey. We firmly believe that network and security teams will benefit by making AI a consistent part of their workflow, enabling them to deploy resources efficiently and respond rapidly to the most important threats."