F5 Helping Customers Mitigate Heartbleed Bug

Little or no immediate action required for most customers

In response to widespread concern about this week’s OpenSSL Heartbleed bug and related attacks, F5 Networks today issued a statement and some simple guidance for its customers.

Companies using F5® BIG-IP® Local Traffic Manager™ (LTM®) to terminate SSL connections already have the necessary protections in place to secure their applications against the Heartbleed bug. For companies terminating SSL connections on application servers (not utilizing F5 SSL offload), the threat can be immediately mitigated through open, extensible F5 iRules®. Customers are encouraged to visit F5’s DevCentral™ and f5.com for more information.

“For organizations using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) with our SSL stack, applications are already protected from the Heartbleed vulnerability,” said Mark Vondemkamp, VP of Product Management, Security at F5. “They have been protected from the Heartbleed bug since it was introduced in OpenSSL.”

For those not using F5 for SSL offload, the company offers a unique and effective approach to protect against severe, industry-wide vulnerabilities like Heartbleed. Using extensible iRules from F5, customers can easily eliminate the possibility that attacks seeking to exploit the Heartbleed vulnerability will reach back-end servers, providing protection while sever certificates are being updated.

Details

The Heartbleed bug exploits a vulnerability in the OpenSSL library, enabling hackers to steal sensitive information typically protected by TLS encryption, which is the standard for securing Internet communications such as email, instant messaging, and VPNs, as well as applications. The Heartbleed bug can enable hackers to peer into and steal sensitive corporate, government, and personal data, putting intellectual property, state secrets, and personally identifiable information (PII) at risk. It also allows attackers to lift typically private user names, sessions, and passwords, thereby enabling them to imitate users and services, making an array of services and information open and vulnerable to attack and theft.

The F5 platform allows for a unique and effective approach to protect against a severe, industry-wide bug like Heartbleed.

“F5’s full-proxy architecture enables protection against zero-day threats and vulnerabilities,” added Vondemkamp. “This is an industry-tested, high-performance solution that delivers exceptional security, even for severe threats such as the Heartbleed bug.”

About F5

F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) makes apps go faster, smarter, and safer for the world’s largest businesses, service providers, governments, and consumer brands. F5 delivers cloud and security solutions that enable organizations to embrace the application infrastructure they choose without sacrificing speed and control. For more information, go to f5.com. You can also follow @f5networks on Twitter or visit us on LinkedIn and Facebook for more information about F5, its partners, and technologies.

F5 is a trademark or service mark of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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