F5 has acquired agentic AI and threat management startup Fletch to bolster the security capabilities of its new Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP).
F5 only recently began offering its ADSP platform, which combines F5’s load balancing and traffic management technology with application and API security capabilities in a single platform. The idea is to offer a platform-based system that reduces complexity and simplifies operations while providing security for a broad range of enterprise applications, the vendor stated. (Read more about the trend toward platformization: Platform approach gains steam among network teams)
The ADSP package is the evolution of F5’s application delivery controller technology.
“With the rise of APIs, microservices, and AI-driven workloads, ADCs have never been more critical. The deployment of modern, AI-driven workloads requires a solution that supports intelligent traffic management, provides robust security, and offers unified management across all environments,” said Kunal Anand, F5’s chief innovation officer, about ADSP. The platform supports a variety of security technologies, including a web application firewall, API protection, DDoS mitigation, and SSL/TLS traffic encryption.
Fletch’s technology uses a number of agents for gathering threat intelligence and offering analytical data. Adding that to the ADSP platform will help further reduce complexity and bring deeper insights, real-time threat intelligence, and proactive security recommendations, the vendor stated. Fletch’s agents are also part of Microsoft’s Security CoPilot ecosystem.
“Security teams are drowning in data, alerts, and logs,” wrote F5’s Anand wrote in a blog about the acquisition. “They need actionable context to reduce complexity and respond efficiently. By adding Fletch’s agentic AI capabilities to our platform, we can provide even deeper insights, real-time threat intelligence, and proactive security recommendations that empower teams to stay ahead of threats.”
At its core, agentic AI represents AI that doesn’t just process data—it takes proactive action, offers security analytics and reduces alert fatigue, Grant Wernick, founder and CEO of Fletch, stated in the F5 blog.
“For example, let’s say a security team receives thousands of alerts daily. Agentic AI can analyze this noise, correlate it with external and internal data sources, and prioritize the most critical threats, often before an Indicator of Compromise is found. It can also provide real-time context and assign tasks to other agents, such as, ‘This IP address is associated with a known ransomware group so block it’ or, ‘This anomalous activity is likely benign based on similar past behavior, so close this ticket.’ By embedding these capabilities into the F5 ADSP, we’re enabling security professionals to focus on what matters most—protecting their organization—while reducing time spent sifting through noise,” Wernick stated.
Source:: Network World