People increasingly rely on digital services to buy products, check email, pay rent, and more. Businesses must defend their websites to boost productivity and reassure customers about security. If your website gathers any client information, it is your responsibility to keep it safe from cybercriminals.
What is a Web Application Firewall?
Web Application Firewall, or WAFs, protect against an ever-growing number of sophisticated web-based incursions and assaults that target web server applications and the sensitive or secret data they have access to.
How Does It Work?
Your WAF is a firewall that protects your web apps from dangerous behavior in the same way that your organization’s firewall protects your IT infrastructure by filtering traffic and protecting against cybercriminals. A WAF defends against malicious behavior by monitoring HTTP traffic and filtering it out before it reaches the server. WAFs use a set of rules to assist identify malicious traffic by identifying which vulnerabilities and traffic patterns to look for.
WAFs may be set up in one of three ways: whitelisting, blacklisting, or hybrid. Whitelisting instructs the WAF to accept only traffic that has been pre-approved and fulfills certain criteria into the system. Blacklisting is set up to prevent known vulnerabilities and malicious signatures while allowing all other traffic to get through. For the unique needs of the web application, Hybrid is set to include both whitelisting and blacklisting techniques. Depending on the purpose of your web application, each of these options offers advantages and disadvantages. Your internal IT team or a third-party IT partner can set up a configuration that is optimize for your online apps. To find out if a WAF is ideal for your company, contact us now.
Types of Web Application Firewalls
There are three different types of WAFs on the market. They all achieve the same aim, but they are installing and deploy in various areas. As a result, the three varieties differ in terms of cost, maintenance, and speed. Because one isn’t always better than the other, it’s up to your IT team or manage service provider to figure out which is the greatest fit for your company’s needs.
WAF depending on hardware
A hardware-based WAF is one that is placing on a physical piece of hardware and deployed locally within a LAN, or local area network. The operating system is installing on the appliance and supports any WAF updates. Because this choice is based on hardware, it comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Physical equipment is costly to own and maintain, making it more expensive than other WAF kinds. However, because of its near proximity to the server, this option offers excellent performance and speed. This option may be suitable for businesses with a significant number of customers and a lot of daily online traffic.
WAF based on software
Instead of using hardware, a software-base WAF is placing in a Virtual Machine, or VM. This alternative performs the same duties as the hardware-based WAF, but with more flexibility because it may be deploy on-premises or in the cloud, and at a lower cost because no hardware is require. However, the software-based WAF takes longer to monitor and filter traffic, slowing down the web application. Small to midsize businesses that need to protect themselves while keeping prices low may prefer this alternative.
WAF in the cloud
A cloud-based WAF is available as a SaaS (software as a service) model. The WAF is totally in the cloud with this option, and everything is controlling by the service provider. The service provider will optimize and update as needed, making it the easiest option for organizations to adopt and operate a WAF. This approach may be the best fit for businesses with minimal IT resources to maintain and administer their WAF.
Who needs a Web Application Firewall?
Is there a website or other web apps for your company? If you said yes, you should think about employing a WAF. Cybercriminals target even small websites since small firms often disregard this sort of protection, putting you at risk no matter how unlikely it seems.
HTTPS, which is use by over 70% of all websites, is a vital first step in safeguarding any data your website collects, such as customer or payment information.
Unfortunately, HTTPS is only the bare minimum in terms of security, and it will not prevent thieves from penetrating your database and stealing critical consumer data.
A WAF can help secure you in ways that HTTPS can’t since it uses policies to screen and prevent unwanted web traffic and guard against attacks constantly. Caching improves site speed and performance.
- E-commerce sites
- Online financial services
- Lead generation sites
- Online healthcare services
- Any organization required to follow compliancy standards such as PCI DSS or HIPAA.
Benefits of a Web Application Firewall
WAFs aren’t a complete security solution, but they help build a solid security architecture. It tracks and prevents unwanted web application traffic a firewall can’t block. Software-as-a-service makes it easy to set up, implement, and administer, and it may help fill firewall gaps.
Without a WAF, your firm could be attacked, resulting in lost customer or business data, reputation and consumer confidence, and search engine blacklisting. Overall, the consequences would be disastrous for any company. WAFs can assist defend your company from assaults that target online applications, such as:
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) isn’t allow
Cross-Site Scripting, or XSS, is a sort of injection that uses malicious scripts, similar to cookie poisoning. Cybercriminals try to steal cookies or other sensitive data from a web application by sending malicious code to a separate user. WAF can help avoid this by scanning and monitoring requests and blocking them if unsafe conditions are meet. The WAF will prevent malicious XSS code from obtaining access if it is flag as such.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is preventing
This sort of attack includes a large number of infected devices flooding a web service with unusually large amounts of traffic. This results in a denial of service to regular traffic, performance difficulties, and a weakening of security layers. A WAF can detect and stop abnormal behaviour based on indications like heavy traffic from a particular IP address or high website traffic.
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