With new security solutions, F5 wants to bring application security into the “AI age”. Securing APIs is an important part of this.

APIs are becoming increasingly popular, according to figures from F5 in a press release. 88 percent use APIs to run applications in multiple environments. In a hybrid, multi-cloud environment, APIs are the glue that holds everything together. The downside is that APIs are also a popular way for malicious parties to spread malware more quickly. Unsecured APIs are considered one of the biggest security risks today.

It is therefore not surprising that F5’s announcement concerns API security. The security specialist believes that the increasing use of AI will only increase the number of APIs. F5 integrates API security into its Distributed Cloud Services platform to manage the entire lifecycle from a centralized platform in the following ways:

• The risk of new APIs is significantly reduced by identifying vulnerabilities and enforcing strict, accurate specifications before they go into production.
• Clear governance policies with real-time standards and regulatory compliance reporting for security operations teams and CISOs.
• API discovery, including third-party APIs and unmanaged APIs in application code, on public web pages, or referenced in app telemetry.
• A single solution for both API discovery and enforcement of protocols, policies, and configurations from code to runtime.

AI at the helm

F5 also wants to make greater use of the opportunities that AI can offer for cybersecurity. The security company also announces AI Data Fabric. Later this year, F5 plans to add a conversational AI assistant that can support security teams in natural language. The tool generates data visualizations, identifies anomalies, queries and policy configurations, applies remediation actions, and is also available for customer requests. F5 is not the first to bring the concept of a generative AI bot to cybersecurity: Crowdstrike and Trend Micro preceded it.