Network and security teams are currently facing significant challenges in managing enterprise applications, particularly concerning AI security and multi-cloud operations. To address these challenges, F5 has introduced product extensions to its Application Delivery and Security Platform, which include F5 AI Guardrails and F5 AI Red Team, announced on January 14. This follows their earlier launch of F5 NGINXaaS for Google Cloud on January 13. The new AI security tools emerged from F5’s acquisition of CalypsoAI, aimed at enhancing AI security capabilities.
AI security is distinct from traditional network defenses, which typically inspect HTTP requests and analyze packet headers. Instead, AI systems are vulnerable to threats like malicious prompts that can manipulate them into exposing sensitive data without triggering traditional security measures. F5’s Shawn Wormke emphasized that protecting AI models requires a dedicated approach, one that focuses on the content of interactions rather than just the transport-layer characteristics.
F5 AI Guardrails acts as a proxy, sitting between users and AI models. It evaluates prompts before they reach the model and scrutinizes outputs before they are delivered back to users. This solution enforces policies against security threats like injection attacks and ensures compliance with regulations such as GDPR and the EU AI Act.
Meanwhile, F5 AI Red Team automates adversarial testing on AI systems. It accumulates a growing database of attack techniques—expanding by 10,000 entries each month—which helps inform the policies implemented by Guardrails. This synergy enables security teams to address vulnerabilities proactively, translating findings into actionable defenses.
Additionally, F5’s NGINXaaS—a managed service designed for enterprise load balancing—was first launched on Microsoft Azure and is now expanding to Google Cloud to meet demand for consistent tools across cloud platforms. It combines advanced load balancing with security features and provides visibility into application performance metrics necessary for enterprise operations.
As F5 continues to develop both open-source and commercial versions of NGINX, they are also paving the way for AI-aware infrastructure that enhances the delivery and security of applications, adapting to the demands of modern technology landscapes which increasingly rely on AI capabilities.
