F5 Networks (FFIV) Risk Analysis

We expect to derive a significant portion of our net revenues from sales of our application security and delivery product lines in the future. Implementation of our strategy depends upon these products being able to solve critical network availability, performance and security problems for our customers. If our products are unable to solve these problems for our customers or if we are unable to sustain the high levels of innovation in product feature sets needed to maintain leadership in what will continue to be a competitive market environment, our business and results of operations will be harmed.

In the ordinary course of business, we store sensitive data, including intellectual property, personal data, our proprietary business information and that of our customers, suppliers and business partners on our networks. In addition, we store sensitive data through cloud-based services that may be hosted by third parties and in data center infrastructure maintained by third parties. The secure maintenance of this information is critical to our operations and business strategy. Our information systems and those of our partners and customers are subject to the increasing threat of intrusions by a wide range of actors including computer programmers, hackers or sophisticated nation-state and nation-state supported actors or they may be compromised due to employee error or wrongful conduct, malfeasance, or other disruptions. Despite our security measures, and those of our third-party vendors, our information technology and infrastructure has experienced breaches or disruptions and may be vulnerable in the future to breach, attacks or disruptions. If any breach or attack compromises our networks, creates system disruptions or slowdowns or exploits security vulnerabilities of our products, the information stored on our networks or those of our customers could be accessed and modified, publicly disclosed, lost or stolen, and we may be subject to liability to our customers, suppliers, business partners and others, and suffer reputational and financial harm. In addition, our products are used to manage critical applications and data for customers and third parties may attempt to exploit security vulnerabilities in our products as well as our internal IT systems. As we continue to focus on the development and marketing of security solutions, we become a bigger target for malicious computer hackers, including sophisticated nation-state and nation-state supported actors who wish to exploit security vulnerabilities in our products or IT systems. We devote significant resources to addressing security vulnerabilities in our IT systems, product solutions and services through our efforts to engineer more secure solutions and services, enhance security and reliability features in our solutions and services, deploy security updates to address security vulnerabilities and seek to respond to known security incidents in sufficient time to minimize any potential adverse impact. Despite our efforts to harden our infrastructure and build secure solutions, from time to time, we experience attacks and other cyber-threats. These attacks can seek to exploit, among other things, known or unknown vulnerabilities in technology included in our IT infrastructure, solutions and services. While we have undertaken efforts to mitigate these vulnerabilities, they could render our internal systems, products, and solutions and services susceptible to a cyber-attack. Our products may also contain undetected errors or defects when first introduced or as new versions are released. We have experienced these errors or defects in the past in connection with new products and product upgrades. As our products and customer IT infrastructures become increasingly complex, customers may experience unforeseen errors in implementing our products into their IT environments. We expect that these errors or defects will be found from time to time in new or enhanced products after commencement of commercial shipments. These problems may cause us to incur significant warranty and repair costs, divert the attention of our engineering personnel from our product development efforts and cause significant customer relations problems. We may also be subject to liability claims for damages related to product errors or defects. While we carry insurance policies covering this type of liability, these policies may not provide sufficient protection should a claim be asserted. A material product liability claim may harm our business and results of operations. Our products must successfully operate with products from other vendors. As a result, when problems occur in a network, it may be difficult to identify the source of the problem. The occurrence of software or hardware problems, whether caused by our products or another vendor’s products, may result in the delay or loss of market acceptance of our products. The occurrence of any of these problems may harm our business and results of operations. Any errors, defects or vulnerabilities in our products or IT systems could result in: •expenditures of significant financial and product development resources in efforts to analyze, correct, eliminate, or work-around errors and defects or to address and eliminate vulnerabilities; •remediation costs, such as liability for stolen assets or information, repairs or system damage; •increased cybersecurity protection costs which may include systems and technology changes, training, and engagement of third party experts and consultants; •increased insurance premiums; •loss of existing or potential customers or channel partners; •loss of proprietary information leading to lost competitive positioning and lost revenues; •negative publicity and damage to our reputation; •delayed or lost revenue; •delay or failure to attain market acceptance; •an increase in warranty claims compared with our historical experience, or an increased cost of servicing warranty claims, either of which would adversely affect our gross margins; and •litigation, regulatory inquiries, or investigations that may be costly and harm our reputation.

A substantial portion of our business depends on the demand for information technology by large enterprise customers and service providers. In addition to the challenges presented by new cloud computing models, we are dependent upon the overall economic health of our current and prospective customers and the continued growth and evolution of the Internet. International, national, regional and local economic conditions, such as recessionary economic cycles, protracted economic slowdown or further deterioration of the economy could adversely impact demand for our products. Demand for our products and services depends substantially upon the general demand for application delivery products and associated services, which fluctuates based on numerous factors, including capital spending levels and growth of our current and prospective customers, as well as general economic conditions. Moreover, the purchase of our products is often discretionary and may involve a significant commitment of capital and other resources. Future economic projections for the information technology sector are uncertain as companies continue to reassess their spending for technology projects and embrace new models for delivery of IT services, such as cloud computing and highly orchestrated software defined networking environments. As a result, spending priorities for our current and future customers may vary and demand for our products and services may be impacted. In addition, customer buying patterns are changing over time and more customers seek to rent software on a subscription basis and to reduce their total cost of ownership. These evolving business models could lead to changes in demand and licensing strategies, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Many of our products are subject to various regulations promulgated by the United States and various foreign governments including, but not limited to, environmental regulations and regulations implementing export license requirements and restrictions on the import or export of some technologies, especially encryption technology. Changes in governmental regulation and our inability or failure to obtain required approvals, permits or registrations could harm our international and domestic sales and adversely affect our revenues, business and operations.

A wide variety of local, state, national, and international laws, directives and regulations apply to the collection, use, retention, protection, disclosure, transfer, and other processing of personal data. These data protection and privacy-related laws and regulations continue to evolve and may result in ever-increasing regulatory and public scrutiny and escalating levels of enforcement and sanctions and increased costs of compliance. Certain safe-harbor exemptions upon which the Company relies for data transfers have been challenged and may no longer be available to us in the future. Our failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations, or to protect such data, could result in enforcement action against us, including fines, imprisonment of company officials and public censure, claims for damages by end-customers and other affected individuals, damage to our reputation and loss of goodwill (both in relation to existing end-customers and prospective end-customers), any of which could have a material adverse effect on our operations, financial performance, and business. Changing definitions of personal data and personal information, within the European Union, the United States, and elsewhere, especially relating to classification of IP addresses, machine identification, location data, and other information, may limit or inhibit our ability to operate or expand our business, including limiting strategic partnerships that may involve the sharing of data. The evolving data protection regulatory environment may require significant management attention and financial resources to analyze and modify our IT infrastructure to meet these changing requirements all of which could reduce our operating margins and impact our operating results and financial condition.

We have offices and employees located in Israel. As a result, political, economic, and military conditions in Israel directly affect our operations. The future of peace efforts between Israel and its Arab neighbors remains uncertain. There has been a significant increase in hostilities and political unrest in Israel in the past year. The effects of these hostilities and violence on the Israeli economy and our operations in Israel are unclear, and we cannot predict the effect on us of further increases in these hostilities or future armed conflict, political instability or violence in the region. In addition, many of our employees in Israel are obligated to perform annual reserve duty in the Israeli military and are subject to being called for active duty under emergency circumstances. We cannot predict the full impact of these conditions on us in the future, particularly if emergency circumstances or an escalation in the political situation occurs. If many of our employees in Israel are called for active duty for a significant period of time, our operations and our business could be disrupted and may not be able to function at full capacity. Current or future tensions and conflicts in the Middle East could adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the U.S. and global economies and put unprecedented strain on governments, healthcare systems, educational institutions, businesses, and individuals around the world, the impact and duration of which is difficult to assess or predict. It is especially difficult to predict the impact on the global economic markets, which have been and will continue to be highly dependent upon the actions of governments, businesses, and other enterprises in response to the pandemic, as well as the effectiveness of those actions. While our analysis shows COVID-19 did not have a significant impact on our results of operations for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2021, the impacts of the global pandemic on our business and financial outlook are currently unknown. Areas that may or may not be adversely disrupted or impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic include, but are not limited to: customer demand for our products and services, reductions in customer spend, delayed or the inability to collect from our customers, disruptions to our supply chain that could result in delays, shortages or increased costs of our products, disruptions to our operations in servicing our customers as a result of working remotely or business location closures, which all may adversely impact our business, results of operations and overall financial performance in future periods.

We may not be able to compete effectively in the emerging application delivery and security market We expect to continue to face additional competition as new participants enter our markets. As we continue to expand globally, we may see new competitors in different geographic regions. In addition, larger companies with significant resources, brand recognition, and sales channels may form alliances with or acquire competing application services solutions from other companies and emerge as significant competitors. Potential competitors may bundle their products or incorporate an Internet traffic management or security component into existing products in a manner that discourages users from purchasing our products. Any of these circumstances may limit our opportunities for growth and negatively impact our financial performance.

Sales to U.S. and foreign, federal, state, and local governmental agency end-customers account for a significant portion of our revenues and we may in the future increase sales to government entities. Sales to government entities are subject to a number of risks. Selling to government entities can be highly competitive, expensive, and time consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that these efforts will generate a sale. The substantial majority of our sales to date to government entities have been made indirectly through our channel partners. Government certification requirements for products like ours may change, thereby restricting our ability to sell into the federal government sector until we have attained the revised certification. Government demand and payment for our products and services may be impacted by public sector budgetary cycles and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our products and services. Government entities may have statutory, contractual or other legal rights to terminate contracts with our distributors and resellers for convenience or due to a default, and any such termination may adversely impact our future operating results. Governments routinely investigate and audit government contractors’ administrative processes, and any unfavorable audit could result in the government refusing to continue buying our products and services, a reduction of revenue or fines or civil or criminal liability if the audit uncovers improper or illegal activities, which could adversely impact our operating results in a material way. Finally, for purchases by the U.S. government, the government may require certain products to be manufactured in the United States and other relatively high cost manufacturing locations, and we may not manufacture all products in locations that meet the requirements of the U.S. government, affecting our ability to sell these products to the U.S. government.

We currently purchase several hardware components used in the assembly of our products from a number of single or limited sources. Lead times for these components vary significantly and are increasing in light of global shortages of critical components. Global supply chain constraints in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to decrease our visibility into component availability and lead times. Despite efforts to mitigate the effects of supply chain constraints, the unavailability of suitable components, any interruption or delay in the supply of any of these hardware components or the inability to procure a similar component from alternate sources at acceptable prices within a reasonable time, may delay assembly and our ability to fulfill our sales of our products and, hence, our revenues, and may harm our business and results of operations.