Insicon Cyber adds F5 AI tools to boost governance

Insicon Cyber has expanded its AI Security and Governance practice with F5's AI Guardrails and AI Red Team tools, adding runtime protection and adversarial testing to the Australian and New Zealand cybersecurity firm's advisory work.

The additions strengthen a practice launched in early 2025 to help organisations manage AI risk through ISO 42001 compliance projects, managed compliance programmes and board-level governance advice. Insicon Cyber has already completed a joint engagement with a large Australian education organisation to test and protect live AI applications.

The announcement comes as public trust in AI remains weak in Australia. Research from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner found that 4 per cent of Australians trust AI companies, while 87 per cent said they are more concerned about privacy than they were five years earlier.

That concern has been matched by closer regulatory scrutiny. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has called for stronger management of AI risk, while the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has told boards to oversee how AI risks are reflected in broader risk management frameworks.

Insicon Cyber, co-founded in 2013 and based in North Sydney, has built its business around cybersecurity advisory and managed services in Australia and New Zealand. It works with organisations in sectors including financial services, aged care and healthcare, offering services ranging from board cyber advisory and CISO-as-a-Service to managed compliance and a local security operations centre.

Closing Gaps

The latest move is intended to bridge a gap between AI governance frameworks and the security controls applied once AI systems are live. F5's tools are designed to test AI systems for weaknesses and apply controls during operation.

F5 AI Guardrails is aimed at securing AI models and agents during runtime, including protection against prompt injection, jailbreak attempts and the leakage of sensitive data through outputs. F5 AI Red Team is used for automated adversarial testing of AI systems to identify vulnerabilities across the attack surface.

Together, the tools create what both companies describe as a continuous cycle in which testing findings can be translated into runtime controls. That matters for organisations moving AI projects from policy planning into production environments, where risks become operational rather than theoretical.

Jason Baden, Regional Vice President, A/NZ, F5, linked the partnership to a wider trust problem around AI.

"The AI trust gap is something every technology leader in Australia and New Zealand should take seriously. When only 4 per cent of Australians trust AI companies, the industry has a systemic credibility problem, and the organisations that solve it first will be the ones that succeed," said Baden.

He added: "F5 AI Guardrails and AI Red Team were built to close this gap by giving enterprises genuine visibility and control over AI behaviour in production, and to surface vulnerabilities before they become incidents or headlines."

Regional Demand

For Insicon Cyber, the deal also reflects a broader effort to differentiate its AI advisory work in a market where demand for governance and assurance services is rising. The firm began offering ISO 42001-aligned governance frameworks and managed compliance programmes before many other advisers had established dedicated AI practices.

Its AI Security and Governance work spans four areas: governance advisory for boards, AI risk assessment, adversarial testing of AI systems and managed runtime security. These services are framed around regulatory expectations in Australia and New Zealand, as well as international standards for AI management.

The practical element of that work appears to be gaining importance as organisations deploy AI into sensitive environments. Education, healthcare and financial services are among the sectors where live AI systems may process large volumes of personal, regulated or commercially sensitive data.

Matt Miller, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Insicon Cyber, said the first joint customer work had reinforced the need to connect policy with live system protection.

"We have been helping organisations in A/NZ build ISO 42001-aligned governance frameworks and managed compliance programmes since early 2025 - before most advisers had even named this as a practice area. Adding F5 AI Guardrails and Red Teaming means we can now go further. In the last six weeks we completed our first joint engagement, testing live AI applications for a large organisation in the education sector. That work confirmed what we already believed: the governance framework and the runtime security have to work together. One without the other leaves real gaps," said Miller.

F5 said the tools are already deployed globally in regulated sectors including financial services and healthcare, indicating that Insicon Cyber is positioning the offering for customers in Australia and New Zealand facing similar pressures around oversight, privacy and operational resilience.