F5 Teams With WWT to Help Customers Accelerate AI Adoption Without Compromising Security

Key Terms

web application firewall technical

A web application firewall is a security tool that watches and filters traffic between the internet and a website or online service, blocking malicious requests that try to steal data, disrupt service, or exploit weaknesses — like a security guard checking visitors before they enter a building. For investors, it matters because effective protection lowers the risk of costly data breaches, outages, fines and reputational damage, which can preserve revenue and company value, while purchases or upgrades reflect spending on operational risk management.

waf technical

A Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a security layer that sits in front of a company’s websites and online services to block attacks like data theft, fraud, and automated hacking. Investors care because a strong WAF reduces the risk of costly outages, regulatory fines, and reputation damage—much like a lock on a store that lowers the chance of a break-in and protects ongoing sales and customer trust.

post-quantum cryptography technical

Post-quantum cryptography is a set of new methods for scrambling data so it stays secure even if powerful quantum computers exist; think of replacing today’s locks with designs that a future high‑speed lockpicker cannot open. For investors, it matters because companies must upgrade systems, meet regulations, and protect customer and trade data—creating costs, competitive advantages, or legal and reputational risks depending on how quickly and effectively they adopt these new security standards.

kubernetes technical

Kubernetes is an open-source system that automates running and managing many pieces of software across groups of computers, like a conductor coordinating musicians so each piece plays at the right time and place. For investors, it matters because companies that use it can deploy updates faster, scale services up or down automatically, and cut infrastructure costs — factors that influence growth, reliability and operating margins.

opentelemetry technical

A set of open technical standards and tools used to collect performance data from software systems—like the instruments and dashboard in a car that show speed, fuel and warnings. Investors care because it helps companies detect slowdowns, fix outages faster and measure efficiency, which can lower operating costs, protect revenue and preserve customer trust; better monitoring often translates into more predictable business performance.

zero trust technical

Zero trust is a security approach that assumes no one, whether inside or outside an organization, should be automatically trusted. Instead, every access request is carefully verified before being granted, much like checking ID at every door rather than trusting someone just because they are known. For investors, it emphasizes the importance of protecting digital assets and data from potential breaches, reducing overall risk.

defense-in-depth technical

A strategy of layered safeguards that combines multiple, different controls to prevent failures, breaches or accidents. Like a series of locked doors, alarms and backup plans protecting the same asset, each layer reduces the chance that a single problem becomes a crisis; for investors, clear defense-in-depth means management is actively lowering operational, cybersecurity and regulatory risk, which can protect earnings, reputation and long-term value.

F5 now supports AI Readiness Model for Operational Resilience (ARMOR) framework from WWT to better address the expanding AI attack surface

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in delivering and securing every app and API, today announced enhanced support for WWT’s AI Readiness Model for Operational Resilience (ARMOR). Built on practical experience and expert insights, ARMOR is a vendor-agnostic AI security framework delivered by World Wide Technology (WWT), leveraging a jointly built approach with NVIDIA and strengthened through real-world collaboration. Designed to secure AI deployments at every stage, it helps organizations better address the expanded attack surface created by hybrid AI platforms, where data moves constantly between environments, APIs, and new connection points.

The ARMOR framework conceptualizes an advanced, modular cybersecurity solution delivered by WWT to meet the needs of enterprises facing unprecedented growth in the rate, scale, and sophistication of cyberattacks. It focuses on providing AI-powered threat detection, mitigation, and visibility while integrating with industry-leading solutions from the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP). This combination ensures that workloads are deployed and accessed safely and efficiently, no matter where they reside across multicloud environments.

“For organizations of any size, ARMOR provides a scalable framework that can be continuously refined as new partners and technologies join the ecosystem,” said Istvan Berko, Global Head of AI Cyber and Innovation at WWT. “By embedding security from chip-to-cloud and aligning with industry organizations and compliance mandates, ARMOR articulates an end-to-end AI security approach that provides comprehensive coverage over key IT domains.”

ARMOR is divided into six primary domains to ensure comprehensive, modular coverage of the full AI lifecycle, with “Cyber Resilience” acting as an additional umbrella. Each domain targets a distinct security challenge, enabling organizations to align their defenses with real-world threats, regulatory requirements, and operational maturity for scalable, resilient AI deployments. Within each domain, there are myriad use cases for a variety of F5 offerings, with notable examples included below:

Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) aligns AI operations with regulatory, policy, and ethical standards for transparent and trustworthy AI systems. F5 AI Guardrails acts as a proxy for AI traffic, inspecting prompts and responses to prevent data leakage, mitigate prompt injection, and block other AI-targeted attacks. The solution also provides observability, logging, and traceability features such as watermarking to support compliance and security audits.

Secure AI Operations transforms reactive defenses into proactive strategies, enhancing threat detection, streamlining incident response, and driving continuous improvement. Aligned with a broader solution focus on XOps, F5 provides real-time fleet observability and recommendations, with F5 web application firewall (WAF) offerings reducing false positives and providing actionable alerts with predictive insights, rapid triage, and automated F5 iRules creation and translation. For enhanced visibility to further drive security and interoperability, F5 products support OpenTelemetry-compatible capabilities across F5’s ADSP.

Model Protection details layered defenses like model scanning, runtime security, lifecycle traceability, and red teaming to safeguard AI systems from adversarial threats, misuse, and operational vulnerabilities. F5 AI Red Team automates adversarial testing, paired with F5 AI Guardrails to dynamically protect against prompt injection, jailbreaks, data exfiltration, and model misbehavior while supporting advanced analytics and risk benchmarking.

Secure Development Lifecycle (SDLC) helps define a practical roadmap for secure coding practices, threat modeling, and AI model scanning to better identify, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities. F5 ADSP’s XOps overlay spans all products, integrating application scanners, automation, orchestration, and AI assistants to deliver consistent advantages across the portfolio while tightly aligning with the SDLC. This creates a virtuous cycle of testing and implementation, as well as a single source of truth—without compromising speed or agility—by treating secure configurations as code to better support SDLC planning, stability, and management.

Infrastructure Security unlocks scalable, risk-based identity security for AI and high-performance computing environments, helping organizations analyze the foundational controls securing their systems. F5’s extensive security offerings provide post-quantum cryptography (PQC) readiness. Per-tenant connectivity and enforcement is provided by F5 Distributed Cloud Services, while BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes controls ingress/egress for Kubernetes clusters to apply load balancing, security, visibility, and network integration functions.

Data Protection outlines maturity models, AI-specific strategies, and implementation best practices to help build resilient data security across hybrid environments. F5 ADSP provides security standardization across the control plane, and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager standardizes secure, structured transport between models and agents while providing high availability and health checks. Additionally, the recent release of F5 BIG-IP v21.0 adds pre-configured S3 profiles, enabling customers to more easily support AI storage use cases while optimizing performance and efficiency.

Cyber Resilience grounds all six of the above domains in zero trust and defense-in-depth principles, with maturity models, recovery planning, and integrated operations to help organizations prepare, respond, and recover. F5 ADSP solution guidance in providing security for every app and API reinforces the companies’ shared perspective that every domain has distinct security requirements and must be properly protected.

“AI’s ascension and integration into every element of modern business have transformed what application, API, and infrastructure security should look like,” said Kunal Anand, Chief Product Officer at F5. “Together with companies like WWT, F5 is focused on helping CISOs and security teams implement game-changing AI capabilities while simultaneously addressing corresponding shifts in overall threat, compliance, and data sovereignty landscapes.”

Supporting materials

• Press release: World Wide Technology unveils ARMOR: A collaborative AI security framework with NVIDIA AI
• Blog: WWT’s ARMOR framework accelerates AI adoption with F5 support

About F5

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV) is the global leader that delivers and secures every app. Backed by three decades of expertise, F5 has built the industry’s premier platform—F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP)—to deliver and secure every app, every API, anywhere: on-premises, in the cloud, at the edge, and across hybrid, multicloud environments. F5 is committed to innovating and partnering with the world’s largest and most advanced organizations to deliver fast, available, and secure digital experiences. Together, we help each other thrive and bring a better digital world to life.

For more information, visit f5.com

Explore F5 Labs threat research at f5.com/labs

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F5 and BIG-IP are trademarks, service marks, or tradenames of F5, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. The use of the terms “partner,” “partners,” “partnership,” or “partnering” in this press release does not imply that a joint venture exists between F5 and any other company.

Forward‑looking statements

This press release contains forward‑looking statements made by F5, including statements regarding F5’s support for and integration with WWT’s AI Readiness Model for Operational Resilience (ARMOR), the expected capabilities and benefits of F5 products used in connection with the ARMOR framework, and anticipated outcomes for customers deploying AI securely across hybrid environments. These statements are based on F5’s current expectations and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including customer adoption, product development and integration timelines, competitive conditions, security threats, and broader market and economic factors, as well as other risks described in F5’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. F5 undertakes no obligation to update any forward‑looking statements.

Source: F5, Inc.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260303147551/en/

Jenna Becker

F5

(415) 857-2864

j.becker@f5.com

Holly Lancaster

We. Communications

(415) 547-7054

hlancaster@wecommunications.com

Source: F5, Inc.