--- ticker: FFIV company: FFIV filing_type: 10-K year_current: 2024 year_prior: 2023 risks_added: 0 risks_removed: 0 risks_modified: 6 risks_unchanged: 39 source: SEC EDGAR url: https://riskdiff.com/ffiv/2024-vs-2023/ markdown_url: https://riskdiff.com/ffiv/2024-vs-2023/index.md generated: 2026-06-01 --- # FFIV: 10-K Risk Factor Changes 2024 vs 2023 > Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR) > Generated: 2026-06-01 > All data extracted directly from official filings. No hallucinated content. ## Summary | Status | Count | |--------|-------| | New risks added | 0 | | Risks removed | 0 | | Risks modified | 6 | | Unchanged | 39 | --- ## Modified: Legal and Regulatory Risks **Key changes:** - Reworded sentence: "•Our failure to adequately protect personal information could have a material adverse effect on our business; •A portion of our revenue is generated by sales to government entities, which are subject to a number of challenges and risks; •We face litigation risks; •We may not be able to adequately protect our intellectual property, and our products may infringe on the intellectual property rights of third parties; •We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in international markets; and •Changes in governmental regulations could negatively affect our revenues." **Prior (2023):** •Our failure to adequately protect personal information could have a material adverse effect on our business; •A portion of our revenue is generated by sales to government entities, which are subject to a number of challenges and risks; •We face litigation risks; 14 14 14 Table of Contents Table of Contents •We may not be able to adequately protect our intellectual property, and our products may infringe on the intellectual property rights of third parties; •We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in international markets; •Changes in governmental regulations could negatively affect our revenues. **Current (2024):** •Our failure to adequately protect personal information could have a material adverse effect on our business; •A portion of our revenue is generated by sales to government entities, which are subject to a number of challenges and risks; •We face litigation risks; •We may not be able to adequately protect our intellectual property, and our products may infringe on the intellectual property rights of third parties; •We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in international markets; and •Changes in governmental regulations could negatively affect our revenues. --- ## Modified: Issues related to the development and use of artificial intelligence ("AI") could give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business **Key changes:** - Reworded sentence: "AI presents risks, challenges, and potential unintended consequences that could affect our and our customers' adoption and use of this technology." - Added sentence: "The AI-related legal and regulatory landscape remains uncertain and may be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction." - Added sentence: "Our obligations to comply with the evolving legal and regulatory landscape could entail significant costs or limit our ability to incorporate certain AI capabilities into our offerings." - Removed sentence: "22 22 22 Table of Contents Table of Contents" **Prior (2023):** We currently incorporate AI technology in certain of our products and services and in our business operations. Our research and development of such technology remains ongoing. AI presents risks, challenges, and unintended consequences that could affect our and our customers' adoption and use of this technology. AI algorithms and training methodologies may be flawed. Additionally, AI technologies are complex and rapidly evolving, and we face significant competition in the market and from other companies regarding such technologies. While we aim to develop and use AI responsibly and attempt to identify and mitigate ethical and legal issues presented by its use, we may be unsuccessful in identifying or resolving issues before they arise. AI-related issues, deficiencies and/or failures could (i) give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, including with respect to proposed legislation regulating AI in jurisdictions such as the European Union and others, and as a result of new applications of existing data protection, privacy, intellectual property, and other laws; (ii) damage our reputation; or (iii) otherwise materially harm our business. 22 22 22 Table of Contents Table of Contents **Current (2024):** We currently incorporate AI technology in certain of our products and services and in our business operations. Our research and development of such technology remains ongoing. AI presents risks, challenges, and potential unintended consequences that could affect our and our customers' adoption and use of this technology. AI solutions may use algorithms, datasets, or training methodologies that are incomplete, reflect biases, or contain other flaws or deficiencies. Additionally, AI technologies are complex and rapidly evolving, and we face significant competition in the market and from other companies regarding such technologies. While we aim to develop and use AI responsibly and attempt to identify and mitigate ethical and legal issues presented by its use, we may be unsuccessful in identifying or resolving issues before they arise. The AI-related legal and regulatory landscape remains uncertain and may be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Our obligations to comply with the evolving legal and regulatory landscape could entail significant costs or limit our ability to incorporate certain AI capabilities into our offerings. AI-related issues, deficiencies and/or failures could (i) give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, including with respect to proposed legislation regulating AI in jurisdictions such as the European Union and others, and as a result of new applications of existing data protection, privacy, intellectual property, and other laws; (ii) damage our reputation; or (iii) otherwise materially harm our business. --- ## Modified: Security vulnerabilities or control failures in our IT infrastructure or multicloud application security and delivery products and services as well as unforeseen product errors could have a material adverse impact on our business results of operations, financial condition and reputation **Key changes:** - Reworded sentence: "Our IT infrastructure and those of our partners and customers are subject to the increasing threat of intrusions by a wide range of bad actors and malicious parties, 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." - Reworded sentence: "If any breach or attack compromises our IT infrastructure, creates system disruptions or slowdowns or exploits security vulnerabilities therein, the information stored on our networks or those of our customers could be accessed and modified, publicly disclosed, or lost or stolen, and we may be subject to liability to our customers, individuals, suppliers, business partners and others, and may suffer reputational and financial harm." - Reworded sentence: "Any errors, defects or vulnerabilities in our products or IT infrastructure 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; 16 16 16 Table of Contents Table of Contents •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; •inaccessibility to certain data or systems necessary to operate the business; •negative publicity and damage to our reputation; •delayed or lost revenue; •delay or failure to attain market acceptance or decrease in demand for our products and services; •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." **Prior (2023):** 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 IT infrastructure and those of our partners and customers are subject to the increasing threat of intrusions by a wide range of bad actors and malicious parties, 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 IT 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 IT infrastructure, creates system disruptions or slowdowns or exploits security vulnerabilities therein, 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. Our multi-cloud application security and delivery products and services are used by our customers to manage their critical applications and data. Bad actors and other malicious parties, may attempt to exploit security in our internal IT infrastructure or cloud environments that support our SaaS-based and managed solutions and services as well as our products that may be deployed in a customer environment. To address these security risks, we devote significant resources to identify and eliminate security vulnerabilities in our multi-cloud application security and delivery products and services. These efforts include, but are not limited to engineering and enhancing security and reliability features in our products and services, deploying security updates to address security vulnerabilities, and seek to respond to known security incidents in sufficient time to minimize any potential adverse impacts to our customers and IT infrastructure. Despite our efforts to harden our IT infrastructure, our security and delivery products and services against these risks, 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, security and delivery products and services. While we have undertaken efforts to mitigate these vulnerabilities, they could render our IT infrastructure, security and delivery products and services susceptible to a cyber-attack which may subject the Company to liability to our customers, suppliers, business partners and others, and suffer reputational and financial harm. 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 infrastructure 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; 16 16 16 Table of Contents Table of Contents •increased insurance premiums; •loss of existing or potential customers or channel partners; •loss of proprietary information leading to lost competitive positioning and lost revenues; •inaccessibility to certain data or systems necessary to operate the business; •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. **Current (2024):** 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 IT infrastructure and those of our partners and customers are subject to the increasing threat of intrusions by a wide range of bad actors and malicious parties, 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 IT 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 IT infrastructure, creates system disruptions or slowdowns or exploits security vulnerabilities therein, the information stored on our networks or those of our customers could be accessed and modified, publicly disclosed, or lost or stolen, and we may be subject to liability to our customers, individuals, suppliers, business partners and others, and may suffer reputational and financial harm. Our multicloud application security and delivery products and services are used by our customers to manage their critical applications and data. Bad actors and other malicious parties, have in the past and may attempt in the future to exploit security vulnerabilities and control weaknesses in our internal IT infrastructure or cloud environments that support our SaaS-based and managed solutions and services as well as our products that may be deployed in a customer environment. Despite our efforts to harden our IT infrastructure, our security and delivery products and services against these risks, those efforts may not be successful, and from time to time, those systems and products could be compromised. Threat actors can seek to exploit, among other things, known or unknown vulnerabilities and control weaknesses in technology included in our IT infrastructure, security and delivery products and services, and failure to quickly identify, patch or mitigate security vulnerabilities or strengthen security controls could render our IT infrastructure, security and delivery products and services susceptible to a cyber-attack which may subject the Company to liability to our customers, suppliers, business partners and others, as well as reputational and financial harm. Moreover, inadequate or incomplete security monitoring, logging, asset management, or internal reporting and escalation, or gaps in coverage of security tools in our environment, could impact our ability to detect and respond to threats early and efficiently, giving threat actors an opportunity to gain access to our environment undetected. Finally, we rely on a number of third parties who connect to our network or with whom we share data, to support our business and operations, and to the extent that these third parties have weaknesses or deficiencies in their security program or vulnerabilities, they present business, operational, reputational, financial and legal risk. If any one or more of these vendor's security is compromised, it could have similar consequences as if we experienced a security event ourselves. Our products may also contain undetected errors, defects, or vulnerabilities when first introduced or as new versions are released. We have experienced these issues in the past in connection with new products and product upgrades. As our products and customer IT infrastructures become increasingly complex, customers may also experience unforeseen errors in implementing our products into their IT environments. We expect that these errors, defects, or vulnerabilities will be found from time to time in new or enhanced products after commencement of commercial shipments. Any of these may temporarily or permanently disable our end-customers' networks, information technology infrastructure or other systems, or expose our end-customers' networks to attacks or compromise from security threats. These problems may cause us to incur significant warranty and repair costs, divert the attention of our engineering personnel from our product development efforts, cause significant customer relations problems, and impact demand for our products and services. We may also be subject to liability claims for damages. We carry insurance policies covering these types of liabilities, but 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 infrastructure 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; 16 16 16 Table of Contents Table of Contents •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; •inaccessibility to certain data or systems necessary to operate the business; •negative publicity and damage to our reputation; •delayed or lost revenue; •delay or failure to attain market acceptance or decrease in demand for our products and services; •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. --- ## Modified: General Risks **Key changes:** - Reworded sentence: "•Continued macroeconomic downturns or uncertainties may harm our industry, business, and results of operations; •We face risks associated with having operations and employees located in Israel; •Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, power outages, floods, and other catastrophic events, and to interruption by man-made problems such as terrorism; and •Climate change may have an impact on our business." **Prior (2023):** •Continued macroeconomic downturns or uncertainties may harm our industry, business, and results of operations; •We face risks associated with having operations and employees located in Israel; •Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, power outages, floods, and other catastrophic events, and to interruption by man-made problems such as terrorism; •Climate change may have an impact on our business. **Current (2024):** •Continued macroeconomic downturns or uncertainties may harm our industry, business, and results of operations; •We face risks associated with having operations and employees located in Israel; •Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, power outages, floods, and other catastrophic events, and to interruption by man-made problems such as terrorism; and •Climate change may have an impact on our business. 15 15 15 Table of Contents Table of Contents --- ## Modified: Macroeconomic downturns or uncertainties may harm our industry, business, and results of operations **Key changes:** - Reworded sentence: "Adverse macroeconomic conditions both in the U.S." **Prior (2023):** We operate globally and as a result, our business, revenues, and profitability may be impacted by global macroeconomic conditions. The continuing adverse global macroeconomic conditions and related market uncertainties have, among other things, softened customer demand and customer purchase decisions, which may in turn, limit our ability to forecast future business activities involving our products and services. Prolonged adverse macroeconomic conditions both in the U.S. and abroad, including, but not limited to, rising interest rates to combat inflationary pressures of goods and services, challenges in the financial and credit markets, labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, trade uncertainty, adverse changes in global taxation and tariffs, sanctions, outbreaks of pandemic diseases such as COVID-19, political unrest and social strife, armed conflicts, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or other impacts from the macroeconomic environment have led to a slowing of global economic growth. Continued worsening of macroeconomic conditions could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows through, among others, softer demand of our products and services as well as unfavorable increases to our operating costs, which could negatively impact our profitability. **Current (2024):** We operate globally and as a result, our business, revenues, and profitability may be impacted by global macroeconomic conditions. Adverse macroeconomic conditions both in the U.S. and abroad, including, but not limited to, rising interest rates, inflationary pressures on goods and services, challenges in the financial and credit markets, labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, trade uncertainty, adverse changes in global taxation and tariffs, sanctions, outbreaks of pandemic diseases, political unrest and social strife, armed conflicts, or other impacts from the macroeconomic environment could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows through, among others, softer demand of our products and services as well as unfavorable increases to our operating costs, which could negatively impact our profitability. 27 27 27 Table of Contents Table of Contents --- ## Modified: Climate change and associated regulation may have an impact on our business **Key changes:** - Reworded sentence: "Rapidly changing customer requirements to reduce carbon emissions also presents a risk of loss of business if we are not able to meet criteria." **Prior (2023):** Risks related to climate change are increasing in both impact and type of risk. We believe there will not be significant near-term impacts to our offices worldwide due to climate change, but long-term impacts remain unknown. However, there may be business operational risk due to the significant impacts climate change could pose to our employees' lives, our supply chain, or electrical power availability from climate-related weather events. In addition, rapidly changing customer and regulatory requirements to reduce carbon emissions present a risk of loss of business if we are not able to meet those requirements. **Current (2024):** Risks related to climate change are increasing in both impact and type of risk. We believe there will not be significant near-term impacts to our offices worldwide due to climate change, but long-term impacts remain unknown. However, there may be business operational risk due to the significant impacts climate change could pose to our employees' lives, our supply chain, or electrical power availability from climate-related weather events. Rapidly changing customer requirements to reduce carbon emissions also presents a risk of loss of business if we are not able to meet criteria. In addition, we are subject to a range of new and anticipated climate-related and sustainability-focused laws and regulations, including the E.U.'s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. To meet the compliance requirements of these new regulations, we may incur extra costs to implement more internal controls, processes, and procedures, in order to assist in the oversight responsibilities for our management and board of directors. Failure to comply with these regulations or requirements could result in investigations, sanctions, enforcement actions, fines, or litigation, potentially harming our business, operating results, or financial condition. --- *Data sourced from SEC EDGAR. Last updated 2026-06-01.*