F5 Bot Defense uses real-time risk scoring to detect fraud and abuse

F5 has announced enhancements to F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense, introducing new device intelligence capabilities and specialized agentic AI protections. These capabilities bring persistent device context and continuous risk decisioning to application security, giving organizations the real-time agent management designed to help welcome trusted digital interaction while helping stop automated fraud and abuse.

These updates arrive as AI agents emerge as a key channel for interacting with websites, mobile applications, and customer portals. Unlike basic web crawlers or simple automated scripts, AI agents perform autonomous, multi-step actions on behalf of consumers—such as executing transactions in agent-based commerce, booking travel, and conducting banking operations.

Because these agents interact directly with APIs at machine speed, first-generation bot management tools built around rigid “bot or not” rules are quickly overwhelmed. Static, request-level controls can no longer distinguish between authorized AI driving legitimate business and malicious bots attempting fraud, while blunt IP blocking or CAPTCHAs risk shutting down revenue-generating AI channels.

F5 addresses this challenge by delivering advanced bot defense as a core component of its web application and API protection (WAAP) offerings, integrated with the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP). Rather than relying on single-request inspection, F5 correlates behavioral, device, and client-integrity telemetry across interactions. This multi-signal approach establishes trust at critical login, web, and API connections without disrupting legitimate users or authorized AI agents.

“Agentic AI is breaking the old security model, where automated traffic was treated as inherently malicious,” said Kunal Anand, Chief Product Officer at F5. “The answer is not to block AI. It is to understand which agents and devices can be trusted, what they are trying to do, and how risk changes across every interaction. By bringing persistent device intelligence and real-time risk decisioning into the active data path, F5 helps organizations stop fraud and account abuse without closing the door on legitimate users, trusted AI agents, or new digital business models.”

Key enhancements to F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense include:

• Persistent device identification: Identifies and tracks devices across multiple sessions and accounts, exposing hidden abuse patterns such as multi-account access, credential stuffing, and account takeover.
• Real-time device risk scoring: Evaluates client integrity signals in real time to detect suspicious environments (including emulators, device spoofing, and tampering).
• Risk-based workflow enforcement: Enables customers to set dynamic policy actions (allow, step-up challenge, rate-limit, or block) intended to help reduce disruptive CAPTCHA friction and false positives for real users and approved automation.
• Agent-aware policy framework: Classifies and manages traffic from humans, trusted AI agents, and malicious bots within a single policy framework on the F5 ADSP, helping organizations adopt AI-driven workflows with confidence.