Information Technology

While Zero Trust (ZT) security is mainstream in the US and Europe, it has only just begun gaining momentum in the Asia Pacific (APAC). Why now? The global pandemic has accelerated cloud migration and remote work at the same time that firms are grappling with rapidly changing regulations and mounting consumer pressure for improved data privacy. This combination of trends has pushed APAC leaders to take a fresh approach to security and accelerate ZT adoption. Now is the time to embrace ZT and learn lessons from global peers and others who have been on the journey. To that end, I collaborated with my colleague Chase Cunningham (who leads our ZT research globally) to align the local and global experiences on this very important topic.  

ZT Adoption Has Begun Accelerating In APAC 
Zero Trust is an architectural model that combines microperimeters and microsegmentation with other critical capabilities to more intelligently and strategically upscale an organization’s security posture. It increases data security through obfuscation, limits the risks associated with excessive user privileges, and uses analytics and automation to dramatically improve security detection and response. Forrester created ZT in 2009, and it has since become a dominant security model. In August 2020, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology released its standard for ZT architecture; the US federal government, including the Department of Defense, uses ZT as a key piece of its long-term security strategy. 
Firms and public sector entities across APAC are now exploring the benefits of ZT as their security architecture of choice: 
Firms in APAC are adopting ZT in a piecemeal fashion, without necessarily naming it. Chase and I interviewed dozens of CISOs around the region who are doing elements of the framework such as identity and access management and microsegmentation. Many acknowledged the guiding principles of ZT, such as, “never trust, always verify.” But full adoption and naming are still rare — not everyone is ready to take the plunge yet and embrace something different. 
CISOs in APAC see the business benefits, and vendors are coming to market to help with architectures. Thirty-seven percent of C-level security decision-makers in APAC view the complexity of their environment as a key challenge. ZT helps firms rationalize security investments and reduce complexity. CISOs are also increasingly leveraging the framework to align stakeholders on common principles and improve collaboration. And while the vendor community is often accused of overhyping, in this case, many are driving improved awareness and understanding of ZT benefits. 
But Regional Issues Impact Adoption 
CISOs in the region are at wildly different stages of adoption, ranging from “we are learning” to “ZT is a strategic priority, and we are implementing.” This disparity makes it difficult to set standard, region-wide adoption priorities, agree on a common lexicon, and share lessons learned. Some of the challenges CISOs in APAC have raised include: 
Relatively small security functions, with minimal influence within organizations. Twenty-nine percent of C-level security decision-makers in APAC say they struggle with visibility and influence, compared with only 13% in North America. Nineteen percent also cite a lack of security staff as a major challenge. Hence, even if APAC CISOs have the bandwidth to manage large scale implementations, they’re likely to struggle getting the support and budget needed to deliver. 
The “zero” in Zero Trust is jarring for many cultures that are founded on trust. The nomenclature was repeatedly raised to us as an obstacle for adoption since trust plays a significant role in many APAC cultures. Don’t balk at the nomenclature. Acknowledge the many valid concerns your organization and stakeholders have, but work to overcome them through education. Explain to them how Zero Trust actually builds customer trust in your organization by enhancing security. Create engaging ZT content and stay away from overly manufactured security presentations and tech-speak. Focus on impact and likelihood rather than fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Use techniques like gamification to communicate your message, and use messages such as “Trust Starts with Zero Trust.” 
Embrace Zero Trust And Address Your Own And Your Stakeholders’ Concerns 
Implementing ZT in the Asia Pacific requires more upfront planning than it does in other regions that began adopting it earlier and have many more pioneers to learn from. While no government in our region has yet adopted ZT as its cybersecurity agency’s framework, some, such as the Australian government’s Essential Eight, map to elements of the framework. So, start developing your ZT roadmap by assessing the maturity of your current ZT state, documenting where you can reuse existing capabilities, and setting goals for your future state. One of the things I’ve personally learned through this journey is that many organizations already possess key capabilities required for Zero Trust. It’s not as overwhelming as it sounds. And it’s time to act. 
Forrester predicts that in 2021, at least one government in the Asia Pacific will embrace a Zero Trust cybersecurity framework. For more APAC predictions, download our 2021 Predictions Guide. 
This post was written by Principal Analyst Jinan Budge, and it originally appeared here.  More

Zoom, the big winner from remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, is rolling out end-to-end encryption for all video meetings on mobile and desktop devices after criticism that it used “substandard” encryption.
On Tuesday, Zoom announced that end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is immediately available for users on Windows, macOS, and Android. The iOS version of the Zoom app is still awaiting approval from Apple’s App Store review. It’s being rolled out as a “technical preview” for 30 days, during which time Zoom aims to gather customer feedback about their experience with E2EE.

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The company flagged its plans to roll out its E2EE capabilities last week. The desktop version with E2EE support is 5.4.0.
SEE: COVID-19: A guide and checklist for restarting your business (TechRepublic Premium)
Zoom generates individual encryption keys that are used to encrypt voice and video calls between conference participants. The keys are stored on users’ devices and are not shared with Zoom servers, meaning the company can’t access or intercept the content of meetings.
Zoom’s E2EE uses 256-bit AES encryption in Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) to protect online meetings, the company said in a statement. 
“This has been a highly requested feature from our customers, and we’re excited to make this a reality,” said Zoom CISO Jason Lee. 
“Kudos to our encryption team who joined us from Keybase in May and developed this impressive security feature within just six months.”
Zoom nabbed Lee in June from his senior cybersecurity role at Salesforce, where he oversaw IT infrastructure, incident response, threat intel, identity and access management, and offensive security. Prior to that he worked at Microsoft as principal director of security engineering for the Windows and Devices division.
The company acquired encryption firm Keybase in May after it was criticized for claiming it used AES-256 encryption to secure video calls when it was actually using what security researchers labelled a “substandard” AES-128 key in Electronic Codebook (ECB) mode.
“In typical meetings, Zoom’s cloud meeting server generates encryption keys for every meeting and distributes them to meeting participants using Zoom clients as they join. With Zoom’s new E2EE, the meeting’s host generates encryption keys and uses public key cryptography to distribute these keys to the other meeting participants,” Zoom explained. 
“Zoom’s servers become oblivious relays and never see the encryption keys required to decrypt the meeting contents. Encrypted data relayed through Zoom’s servers is indecipherable by Zoom, since Zoom’s servers do not have the necessary decryption key.”
SEE: Top 100+ tips for telecommuters and managers (free PDF) (TechRepublic)    
Zoom notes that enterprise account admins can enable E2EE in the web interface at the account, group, and user level. Additionally, once E2EE is enabled, the host can turn E2EE on or off for any given meeting.
However, phase one of Zoom’s roll-out lacks support for E2EE in a browser. Meeting participants need to join from the Zoom desktop client, mobile app, or Zoom Rooms for E2EE-enabled meetings, according to Zoom. 

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The unique conditions of 2020 mean businesses are more reliant on being digitally connected than ever before. Cyber criminals know this, which is why ransomware attacks have become even more pervasive – and effective during the course of this year.
Hackers are breaking into networks of organisations ranging from tech companies to local governments and almost every other sector; encrypting servers, services and files with ransomware before demanding a bitcoin ransom that can be measured in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

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Part of the reason for the upswing in successful ransomware attacks is the huge growth of remote working as a result of the pandemic.
SEE: A winning strategy for cybersecurity (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)
While employees and their PCs were once safely behind the office firewall, now they’re trying perched at a makeshift workstation in their kitchen or bedrooms, using all manner of cobbled-together technologies to get the job done.
“You have a much bigger attack surface; not necessarily because you have more employees, but because they’re all in different locations, operating from different networks, not working with the organisation’s perimeter network on multiple types of devices. The complexity of the attack surface grows dramatically,” says Shimon Oren, VP of research and deep learning at security company Deep Instinct.
For many employees, the pandemic could have been the first time that they’ve ever worked remotely. And being isolated from the corporate environment – a place where they might see or hear warnings over cybersecurity and staying safe online on a daily basis, as well as being able to directly ask for advice in person, makes it harder to make good decisions about security.
“That background noise of security is kind of gone and that makes it a lot harder and security teams have to do a lot more on messaging now. People working at home are more insular, they can’t lean over and ask ‘did you get a weird link?’ – you don’t have anyone do to that with, and you’re making choices yourself,” says Sherrod DeGrippo, senior director of threat research at Proofpoint.
“And the threat actors know it and love it. We’ve created a better environment for them,” she adds.
Remote working means a lot more of our daily workplace activity is being done over email and that’s providing hackers with a smoother pathway for infiltrating networks in the first place via phishing attacks.
It’s not hard for crooks to customise a phishing email to target employees of a particular organisation and direct them towards a link that requires their Microsoft Office 365 username and password, providing the attackers with initial entry into the network.
“We’re now working from behind residential internet infrastructure whereas before we were behind enterprise-grade infrastructure. Now we’re behind a cable modem that’s not only intended for residential use, but also you’ve got your kids on the same network, people streaming TV,” DeGrippo explains. “It’s a change and a mix from better secured and controlled environments to chaos with no control.”
Another WFH security issue; for some people, their work laptop might be their only computer, which means they’re using these devices for personal activities too like shopping, social media or watching shows. That means that that cyber criminals can launch phishing attacks against personal email addresses, which if opened on the right device, can provide access to a corporate network.
“In the past, if a threat actor wanted to compromise a corporate asset, they’d typically have to email people on their corporate email accounts. But now they can either target corporate emails or personal accounts – and there are going to be less controls on personal accounts,” says Charles Carmakal, SVP and CTO at security company FireEye Mandiant.
He said he had seen a number of attacks that started because somebody opened up an email from their personal account on their corporate computer. “The frequency seeing the personal email address as an attack target feels a little bit higher than it has been,” he says.
“If an attacker is able to phish you and get a backdoor installed on your computer, it may not be connected to your company all day everyday but you will connect at some point,” Carmakal explained.
Once an attacker has successfully compromised a home user, they’ll wait for the user to be connected to the corporate VPN and take it from there like they would if they’d connected to a machine inside the walls of an office.
The attacker will attempt to move laterally around the network, gain access to additional credentials and escalate privileges – preferably by gaining administrator level rights – to be able to deploy ransomware as far and wide across the network as possible.
And with employees spread out by remote working – and in many cases, working irregular hours to fit work around home responsibilities – it can be harder for information security teams to identify unusual or suspicious activity by intruders on the network. That’s especially the case if the information security team didn’t have previous experience of defending remote workers prior to this year.
“They can go undetected because it’s not a situation that organisations have prepared for in terms of their security posture,” says Oren. “So it becomes harder for the defenders and on the other hand there’s much more opportunity and more touch points for the attackers.”

While the rise in remote working has provided cyber criminals with a potential new route into compromising networks with ransomware, it is still possible for an organisation to move to remote work while also keeping its staff and servers protected from a cyberattack.
SEE: Network security policy (TechRepublic Premium)
Some of this comes from the human level, by training and engaging with staff, even while they’re WFH, so they know what to look for in a phishing email or other suspicious online activity. But it’s probably impossible – and unfair – to expect employees to carry the weight of defending the organisation from cyberattacks.
“A technical defence followed by a really well educated user base, who know what to do if they encounter something, if they seem unsafe, is the best way to go for most organisations,” says DeGrippo.
One of the reasons ransomware has become so successful is because many organisations don’t have offline backups of their data. Regularly backing up the network helps provide a fail-safe against ransomware attacks because it provides the ability to restore the network with relative ease without having to line the pockets of cyber criminals.
Multi-factor authentication is a must when it comes to helping to protect the network from cyberattacks, so if a user does fall victim to a phishing attack and gives away their password by accident – or if attackers simply manage to guess a weak password of an internet-facing port – a second layer of protection prevents them from easily being able to use that compromise as a gateway to the rest of the network.
If possible, it’s also useful to separate the network so that it isn’t flat throughout the entire structure of the organisation, something that doesn’t have any real negative impact on the business, but can go a long way to making it harder for cyber criminals to move around the place if they get in. In the worst case scenario, that means if there is a successful ransomware attack, it can be restricted to a small part of the network.
“If you minimize the ability to move laterally across the network by instigating network segmentation it’ll slow down the spread of ransomware,” said Carmakal. “This is all security basics, but we find a lot of companies still struggle with the basics.”
Regularly applying security patches can also prevent ransomware attacks from being effective as it means they’re unable to take advantage of known vulnerabilities to spread around networks.
However, while ransomware remains a large problem for organisations, with cyber attackers getting more ingenious with their schemes and demanding higher ransoms, the battle isn’t lost.
Other kinds of cyberattacks – that have previously been the flavour of the month for cyber criminals – have successfully been countered, so it isn’t impossible that ransomware could go the same way if organisations – be they on premises, remote, or a mixture of the two – follow the correct security protocols.
SEE: Ransomware: 11 steps you should take to protect against disaster
“I don’t think that it’s all bleak; we’ve seen a significant reduction in software vulnerabilities over the past two or three years. Browser vulnerabilities are almost non-existent and much of that resulted in the reduction of the exploit kit landscape – exploit kits today are quite rare,” says DeGrippo.
“Continuing to fight this fight could go the same way. If we continue to work on the problem, eventually it won’t be as lucrative,” she adds.
The reason ransomware remains lucrative is because victims pay the ransom, opting to do so because they perceive it as the best way to restore the network. But paying the ransom means attacks will just continue.
“Never ever recommend paying the ransom. I understand the considerations behind doing it, but I’d never say it should be done because it’s very obvious that it perpetuates that kind of attack,” says Oren.

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The agency responsible for oversight of My Health Record has revealed there were two incidents that compromised the medical records system during the 2019-20 financial year.
In its annual report, the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) outlined how one matter reported to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) involved a breach to the external IT infrastructure that supports the My Health Record System, but assured that no health information was stolen.
“This potential threat to the supporting IT infrastructure connected to the My Health Record system was identified and promptly addressed. There was no impact to the safety of health information in the system,” ADHA stated.
The other breach was in relation to unauthorised access to an individual’s My Health Record, which was reported by a state or territory authority. The ADHA said the incident involved an individual who was receiving treatment from a healthcare facility and the login used to access the record belonged to a member of the person’s treating team.
The number of breaches during 2019-20 was a significant improvement on last year’s 38 cases.
As of 30 June 2020, there were 22.8 million active records on the My Health Record system. A total of 1.75 million people accessed their record via the national consumer portal and a total of 810 million documents were uploaded to the My Health Record system.
During the financial year, ADHA said it also saw significant increases in pathology, diagnostic imaging, and dispense documents, which it attributed to increases in clinical software connections.
Nationally, 67% of private pathology labs were connected to the My Health Record system, which was short of the 80% target that ADHA had set out to achieve for 2019-20. Meanwhile, 23% of private diagnostic imagining practices connected and shared reports with the system, exceeding the 2019-20 target of 20%.
“Extensive engagement with private sector pathology and diagnostic imaging providers continued throughout 2019–20, supporting providers with their connection and software upgrade challenges. Negotiations with several larger organisations regarding their willingness to participate were ongoing, which accounted for the shortfall in private pathology participation for the year,” ADHA reported.
See more: The ADHA wants to end the use of fax machines in Australian healthcare
The financial report also outlined that due to the prioritisation of COVID-19 response activities across the health sector, it impacted on project delivery and resources. This included delaying the ability of a number of software providers to deliver enhancements for the ADHA’s secure messaging facility and the establishment of a formal governance arrangement to an implementation plan for the interoperability principles. 
During Senate Estimate on Monday, Department of Health officials revealed over 7 million Australians have now downloaded and registered for the COVIDSafe app but confirmed that the app was only used to trace 17 unique cases that were not otherwise identified by manual contact tracing.
“There hasn’t been a change in a number of additional unique contacts that have not been identified in an additional way since we last spoke to the COVID committee [on 29 September],” Department of Health Associate Secretary Caroline Edwards said.
Read: Health Minister says COVIDSafe is no dud while claiming 200 cases identified
Shadow Minister for Health Chris Bowen and Shadow Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten have, in turn, called the Morrison government out for spending money on an app that has produced little return.
“The government has spent up to AU$70 million on the COVIDSafe app, (most of it on marketing), for 17 traces,” they said. “This is AU$4 million per unique contact.”
The Department of Health was also questioned about the amount of money they spent on external contractors and consultants in 2019-20 during Senate Estimates on Monday.
In response, they outlined that Health had spent a total of AU$127.6 million on 899 contractors and engaged 282 consultants for a total contract value of AU$49.3 million as of 30 June 2020.
Of those, the five largest contracts were awarded to Health Consultants Pty Ltd for AU$1.6 million, KPMG for AU$1.5 million, NSW Council for Intellectual Disability at AU$890,000, and another two contracts were awarded to Pricewaterhouse Coopers for a value AU$1 million and AU$865,000 each.
On the question of whether external consultants or contractors were used to develop the COVIDSafe app, Edwards said the department only used external contractors for legal and privacy advice.
“The only external contract was the privacy assessment, so we got an external contractor to do the privacy assessment, which would be the appropriate thing to do. Most of the development of the actual technical material happened in the Digital Transformation Agency. We didn’t engage anybody for that,” she said.
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The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has a “red flag” feature, which serves up a “ping” whenever an individual or business has been suspected of having fraudulent activity conducted against their name or if their account has been compromised.
Facing Senate Estimates on Tuesday, ATO client engagement second commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn explained that this ping was effectively a caveat on taxpayers’ affairs.
While Hirschhorn said there was no increase in fraudulent activity that could be directly tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said his teams have been very focused on fraud this year.
“Obviously there are new mechanisms of potential fraud across all the programs. We have found — I have previously testified to the level of fraud in the ERS program, which is at about 0.3% of applications on our country, which is a very, very low level of fraud. We have also been looking at JobKeeper and Cashflow Boost and have not found systemic fraud,” he said.
See also: ATO wants to verify citizens are alive and physically present for myGovID registrations
“We have found that there have been some individual opportunistic frauds but we have not identified a high level of fraud and part of that was the design feature of the measures which were designed to be available only to those who have a good lodgement and tax history, which made it harder for people to resurrect dormant entities.”
On the reports of fraud related to the federal government’s early access super scheme, Hirschhorn said the ATO has received a variety of suspicious matter reports from Austrac. But he also said there has been an increase of data breach-related fraud.
“There has also been a spate of — you know, when an organisation has its payroll data, amongst other data hacked, there have been a few hackings of companies which have meant that we have put more red flags on identity files,” he said.
In Australia, the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme requires agencies and organisations that are covered by the Privacy Act to notify individuals whose personal information is involved in a data breach that is likely to result in “serious harm”, as soon as practicable after becoming aware of a breach.
In general terms, an eligible data breach refers to the unauthorised access, loss, or disclosure of personal information that could cause serious harm to the individual whose personal information has been compromised.
In its last report, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner revealed the total number of reported data breaches in Australia for the 2019-20 financial year was 1,050.
For the six months spanning January to June 2020, 518 breaches were notified under the NDB scheme. 124 of those breaches occurred during May, the most reported in any calendar month since the scheme began in February 2018.
Most of these were attributed to human error.
Need to disclose a breach? Read this: Notifiable Data Breaches scheme: Getting ready to disclose a data breach in Australia
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The New South Wales government has set up a dedicated cyber and privacy resilience group as part of its vow to keep customer data safe.
The formation of a so-called, dedicated taskforce that will focus on cyber resiliency and privacy risks across government was in response to the cyber attack the state government suffered earlier this year, according to NSW Department of Customer Service Secretary Emma Hogan, who is the chair of the new group.
The breach resulted in 73GB of data, which comprised of 3.8 million documents, being stolen from staff email accounts. The breach impacted 186,000 customers.
“Since the breach was discovered in April, we’ve invested heavily in both helping customers recover and also in understanding what went wrong, how a hacker was able to access so much customer data entrusted to us, and how we can make sure this never ever happens again,” Hogan said, speaking at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Summit for Data Sharing on Tuesday morning.
See also: Unknown commercial entity blamed for NSW driver’s licence data breach
Alongside setting up the group, Hogan added that the state government is also working with the Information and Privacy Commission NSW to “embed privacy principles within the way we work”.
“We’ve embraced the concept of ‘privacy by design’ to ensure that provisions and protections are built into our projects right from the start. Central to this is for agencies to undertake a privacy impact assessment for projects that might have privacy implications, together with a robust privacy reporting regime,” she touted.
She continued, saying that the state government has started to “incorporate elements of privacy enhancing technologies”, but admitted there was “obviously scope to do more”.
“So whenever you apply for some of that AU$1.6 billion [Digital Restart] funding, you will also need to be able to demonstrate how privacy enhancing technology measures will participate in it. Privacy enhancing technologies will continue to be a major part of our privacy measures now and into the future,” Hogan said.
In June, the state government announced its intentions to stand up a sector-wide cybersecurity strategy, which would supersede the cybersecurity strategy that was last updated in 2018.
The plan to create a new security document followed a AU$240 million commitment to improve NSW’s cybersecurity capabilities, including investments towards protecting existing systems, deploying new technologies, and increasing the cyber workforce.
Under that commitment, the NSW government announced it would stand up a cybersecurity vulnerability management centre in Bathurst, 200kms west of Sydney.
To be operated by Cyber Security NSW, the centre would be responsible for detecting, scanning, and managing online vulnerabilities and data across departments and agencies. 
Of that AU$240 million commitment, AU$60 million would also be spent to create an “army” of cyber experts. Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello said at the time, the creation of a cyber army would see the scope of Cyber Security NSW broadened to incorporate small agencies and councils.
“The AU$60 million is not only a four-fold increase in spending on cybersecurity but allows Cyber Security NSW to quadruple the size of its team in the battle against cyber-crime,” Dominello said.
“Cyber Security NSW will train the next generation of cybersecurity experts and ensure there is a cross-government coordinated response, including advance threat intelligence sharing, cybersecurity training, and capability development.”
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A hacker has stolen roughly $24 million worth of cryptocurrency assets from decentralized finance (DeFi) service Harvest Finance, a web portal that lets users invest cryptocurrencies and then farm the price variations for small profit yields.
The hack took place earlier today and was almost immediately confirmed by Harvest Finance administrators in messages posted on the company’s Twitter account and Discord channel.
According to these messages, a hacker invested large quantities of cryptocurrency assets in its service and then used a cryptographic exploit to siphon the platform’s funds to their own wallets.
In total, the hacker stole $13 million worth of USD Coin (USDC) and $11 million worth of Tether (USDT), according to a transaction ID singled out by Harvest Finance administrators in a subsequent post-mortem investigation.
Two minutes after the attack, the hacker also returned $2.5 million back to the platform, but the reasoning behind this operation remains unclear.
Company claims to have identified the attacker
In a message posted on its Discord channel, Harvest Finance claimed the attack left “a significant amount of personally identifiable information on the attacker” and described them as “well-known in the crypto community.”

In a series of messages posted on Twitter, Harvest Finance admitted that the attack took place because of a mistake on its part and left the door open for the attacker to return the funds without any consequences.
“We made an engineering mistake, we own up to it,” the company said.
“We do not have any interest in doxxing the attacker […]. People should have their privacy,” the company added. “You’ve proven your point. If you can return the funds to the users, it would be greatly appreciated by the community, and let’s move on.”

We made an engineering mistake, we own up to it. Thousands of people are acting as collateral damage
— Harvest Finance (@harvest_finance) October 26, 2020

The company is now offering a $400,000 bounty to anyone who finds a way to return the stolen funds. After the first 36 hours, the bounty will be lowered to $100,000.
“Please do not doxx the attacker in the process. We strongly advise to focus all efforts on ensuring that user funds are successfully returned to the deployer,” Harvest Finance said. More

Shares of networking traffic management technology vendor F5 Networks were up almost 6% in late trading this afternoon, after the company reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue and profit that topped analysts’ expectations, and forecast this quarter higher as well. 
F5 CEO François Locoh-Donou said that “Going forward, we expect continued robust software growth from a more diversified base of subscription and SaaS revenue, a software subscription renewals flywheel that is starting to turn with momentum, and true-forward revenue opportunities on a significant percentage of our long-term software subscription contracts.”
Revenue in the three months ended in September rose 4.1%, year over year, to $615 million, yielding EPS of $2.43. That was above the average Wall Street estimate for $607 million and $2.37.
For the current quarter, the company sees revenue in a range of $595 million to $615 million, again, ahead of consensus for $592 million.
EPS is seen in a range of $2.26 to $2.38, better than the average estimate for $2.28. 
F5, based in Seattle and founded in 1996, is best known for its initial product, its BIG/IP network application traffic controller. The company for many years was an appliance vendor, but over time diversified its product offerings to provide both a virtual version that can be installed in an on-premise standard server setup, and also, in more recent years, a cloud based version.
F5 stock rose almost 6% in late trading to $132.85.

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