Reasons Why the Public Sector Turns to F5
Despite financial pressures and evolving societal needs, the public sector is leveraging technology and talent to turn challenges into opportunities.
Meanwhile, the numbers of APIs and AI applications including AI applications are constantly evolving and has become the threats to public sector and national critical infrastructures.
According to F5’s 2025 State of Application Strategy Report, “94% of organizations deploy applications across multiple environments, resulting in operational inefficiencies and challenges in consistently securing APIs and microservices.”
As public sector organizations go increasingly digital, cybersecurity is more important than ever. Public sector agencies are a favorite target of criminal organizations, often for the personally identifiable information they hold. And they must constantly defend themselves from a wide range of increasingly sophisticated threats—from state-sponsored cyber warfare to power supply interruptions to AI related attacks.
To protect their digital operations from emerging cyberthreats while meeting the need for digital services, many governments across the globe are modernizing their application infrastructures. For example, the U.S. government has invested more than $1.05 billion in cybersecurity and digitization projects across 34 federal agencies through the Technology Modernization Fund established by Congress. In 2025, worldwide government and public sector IT spending is projected to be significant, with total of $5.61 trillion. This is a 9.8% increase from a year before.
As public sector institutions invest in their IT architectures, many are turning to F5 to power and protect the digital experiences their employees and constituents depend upon. So why does the public sector—including all 15 executive departments of the U.S. Cabinet—rely on F5? Here are five reasons:
1. Protection from highly targeted, sophisticated attacks
In 2024, government agencies across the globe experienced a notable surge in cyberattacks, especially those launched by state-sponsored groups and cybercriminal organizations according to: Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024 The report also states that government, education and researches are categorized into top 3 targeted sectors worldwide.
F5 offers a high level of protection from both well-known and emerging threats—reducing the public sector’s risks and protecting their apps from ever more sophisticated attacks. For example, one of our customers, a U.S. government agency that serves over 100 million households and processes more than $2 trillion in payments and benefits, needed a way to stop account automated attacks aimed at taking over citizen accounts.
Using F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense, the agency stopped the account takeover attacks within two days of deploying countermeasures and going into full blocking mode. Today, the agency has the 24x7 threat intelligence it needs to dramatically lower cyber fraud so it can better protect citizen information.
Likewise, the Port Authority of Jamaica chose F5 to optimize its electronic platform that connects seaports and airports across the country. The authority was deploying a Port Community System in the Microsoft Azure cloud and chose F5 for its ability to boost performance while securing confidential customs and shipping data.
Using F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager, the Port Authority now has DDoS protection, SSL inspection and termination, deep visibility and reporting, and centralized policy management.
2. Compliance that goes above and beyond
For the public sector, compliance is a major issue, and cybersecurity regulations continue to evolve. From the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) implemented in the European Union to the executive order on strengthening and promoting innovation in the nation’s cybersecurity by the current administration, governments are continuing to strengthen their security requirements. To meet these growing needs, F5 maintains an active product certification and evaluation program to help public sector organizations around the globe keep up with these changing requirements.
Working with F5, the government agency obtained a more flexible IT environment with strong security and fewer systems to maintain. It also was able to meet the rigorous compliance requirements it needed, particularly, its need to meet many of the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Top 20 Critical Security Controls. “I’ve completely embraced F5 as a security brand that I can trust,” says Corey Van Allen, Server Integration Lead at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. “By choosing F5, DHW is tightening up security throughout the organization.”
Likewise, the City of Bellevue in Washington chose F5, in part, because F5’s products enabled it to meet strict federal compliance requirements. Using F5 technologies, the City of Bellevue was able to easily create distinct policies for different users on different virtual servers, providing police access to the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) data its police officers need to do their jobs. The city was also able to meet the requirement to use tamper-proof, Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)-compliant hardware.
Says Garrett Solberg, an IT Manager in the City of Bellevue’s Infrastructure Division: “You can’t quantify being compliant. You can’t quantify being more secure. You either have it or you don’t. With F5, we’ve acquired everything we need to meet those strict federal requirements.”
3. High availability and performance
According to the KPMG’s latest research on Citizen Experience Excellence, there was an 11% drop in citizen satisfaction with government and public sector organizations from year 2021 to 2023. Not only does a poor digital experience damage constituent relationships, but it also holds back public sector employees for whom digital tools improve productivity and increase efficiency.
As the public sector works to improve the customer experience, the high availability and performance of their applications is key. And with F5, they can accelerate availability and performance to give constituents the extraordinary digital experiences they expect.
One government agency that needed exceptional performance is the Belgium state pension agency, Rijksdienst voor Pensioenen (RVP), which made a public commitment to make pension information digitally accessible to citizens across the nation. RVP’s online pension application had to deliver exceptional performance and availability to millions of users, while also securing sensitive data.
By choosing F5, RVP was able to balance its load and deliver high performance for users, even during high spikes in traffic. “F5 delivers the performance that citizens want and the security we need,” says Ivo Tuytens, IT Security Manager at RVP.
4. Simplified operations and reduced complexity
For some applications, security is the top priority, whereas for others it may be performance or cost. As public sector institutions reap specific business advantages by placing each app on-premises data center, public cloud, edge environments, or a mix of all of these, their IT landscapes are becoming an operational nightmare.
By turning to F5, public sector organizations can easily manage their apps no matter where they’re deployed. For example, a local government agency located in Queensland, Australia, was transforming its infrastructure from a traditional data center into a modern hybrid cloud and on-premises based architecture as it rolled out web-based services.
Working with F5, the council now has the ability to monitor user identity and manage access to applications using a centralized, policy-based management console. “In a hybrid environment, the ability to secure and differentiate access to the council’s applications and network is important,” says Wade Rogers, the council’s Manager of Information Technology and Systems. “With F5, we are able to deliver applications to the users and ensure that the security posture doesn’t change no matter where the users are.”
5. Protection for AI system
The public sector is embracing the power of AI to drive innovation and efficiency. We have already seen many government agencies implementing AI applications from language translation, pros and cons analysis and even auto score enrollment essays used in education.
As AI architecture rely on APIs to interconnect, the protection and the observability of API are more crucial than ever. According to F5’s 2025 State of Application Strategy Report, “96% of organizations say they’re currently deploying AI models, and today’s models are more likely to support line-of-business decisions and employee productivity. “
F5 offers a comprehensive solution for securing AI operations, combining advanced features like traffic inspection, API monitoring, and Kubernetes protection to safeguard any environment. By leveraging F5's technologies, organizations can ensure the security of sensitive data, strengthen application defenses, and optimize operational efficiency across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid architectures.
Security and performance they can trust
As public sector organizations continue to strengthen their digital offerings, they need advanced security they can depend on, compliance-ready products, and high availability and performance their constituents expect. And by choosing F5, they get all of this and more.
As one public sector customer told us, “Application availability, performance—and most importantly, security—mean a world to us and our reputation depends on it.”
To learn more, visit our F5 Public Sector Solutions webpage.