Keeping Networks Running and Protected in a Time of Uncertainty

You’ve seen it happening in communities around the globe over the past few weeks—to help stop the spread of COVID-19, retailers, universities, government agencies, and organizations in almost every other sector are closing their physical offices and transitioning to remote work. And while this shift is necessary from humanitarian and business continuity perspectives, the logistics involved pose serious challenges.

A new reality brings new vulnerabilities

With nearly 100% of staff telecommuting, what becomes the most important link in the connectivity chain? When exponentially more customers rely on the Internet to order products, what part of an organization’s operations suddenly becomes the most critical?

Of course, it’s the network.

The network supports consumer-facing applications, vital services like remote access (VPN), collaboration tools, the company's portal, and other business critical applications.

But what happens if the network becomes clogged? Or if cyber saboteurs discover a vulnerability to exploit and the VPN, firewalls, routers, or web servers come under attack?

According to a 2016 Ponemon Institute study, the cost of downtime averages $9,000 USD per minute. And for many enterprises, the financial cost of an outage—especially a prolonged one—could be in the tens of millions of dollars.

Today, in addition to the fiscal ramifications, the humanitarian cost of an outage is incalculable. For the many organizations that provide essential services, downtime is simply not an option right now. And beyond companies on the frontlines in the fight against COVID-19 such as healthcare providers, banks still need to keep the economy functioning, courts still need to dispense justice, stores need to ship products to self-isolating customers, the latest news needs to be reported to anxious readers... the list goes on.

Stop attacks before they reach your network

F5 is fully committed to helping our customers and the global community through this crisis. We’re doing our part to make sure all F5 services are fully available to organizations that need them, most notably those having to rapidly scale remote operations in a secure and performant way.

Providing managed cloud security services, F5 Silverline is currently protecting hundreds of companies, non-profit organizations, schools, and government agencies against network (DDoS) and web application attacks. Leveraging the cloud, F5 Silverline stops attacks before they can even reach customers' networks and applications.

We’re here to help

In these challenging times, every minute counts.

• If your organization is on the frontline of responding to COVID-19, or you are a nonprofit providing support to communities hard hit by the pandemic, we’re making special arrangements to help you. Call us (866) 329-4253 or directly at +1 (206) 272-7969 for details.
• If you’re under attack now—whether you’re an F5 customer or not—contact us for immediate support.
• We’re offering existing customers enhanced protection with a 30-day grace period to address increased usage requirements.

If you’re interested in learning more about our managed network and application protection services, please get in touch. Call us toll-free at (866) 329-4253 or directly at +1 (206) 272-7969 or visit our website.

For more information about F5’s COVID-19 response and what we’re doing to support organizations around the world, check out our Business Continuity page.