News
Thales announces support for F5 Synthesis Architecture
February 2014 by Marc Jacob
Thales announces F5’s support for Thales nShield hardware security modules (HSMs) through F5 Synthesis’ High Performance Services Fabric. F5’s support for the Thales nShield hardware security module, within the BIG-IP Application Delivery Controller (ADC), offers security-conscious customers an additional layer of security for their SSL keys to comply with corporate security requirements and government mandates as they encrypt their network and application traffic.
Any device handling SSL encrypted traffic is a point of risk within a network infrastructure, representing a target for hackers and cyber-criminals. Customers are therefore looking for solutions that provide high levels of protection for the cryptographic keys that are stored within each device.
Thales nShield HSMs provide certified tamper-resistant cryptographic key generation and management and integrate seamlessly with F5 BIG-IP ADC. By ensuring the cryptographic keys and certificates are used only for their authorized purposes, operational risk is reduced. The robust key management, storage and redundancy features offered by nShield guarantee availability of critical keys, and increase the service velocity to support the increasingly demanding transaction rates of the BIG-IP ADC.
Deploying a Thales nShield HSM with an F5 BIG-IP ADC delivers the following benefits:
· Strong isolation of key material and crypto processes from host environment
· Anti-tamper techniques for physical protection
· Strong authentication for administrators
· Strongly segregated administration domains
· Strongly enforced dual controls for mutual supervision
· High integrity random number generation
· Processing offload to boost capacity
· SSL performance and intelligence
