Web Application Firewall or WAF is one of the critical components in creating strong application security. It’s no wonder that now more and more businesses that provide their products or services on the internet are adopting this technology as an effective solution to balance performance, guaranteed security, and of course, lower costs.
Basically, the main task of the WAF is to protect specific applications from web-based attack threats in the application layer. However, WAF is now growing with more sophisticated features, such as load balancing, intrusion prevention, and threat intelligence. In addition, in terms of technology, WAF is also increasing and becoming part of a more comprehensive security solution such as Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), Unified Threat Management (UTM) and many more.
This article will discuss everything about WAF specifically and why this technology plays an important role in protecting, detecting, and blocking malicious traffic and cyberthreats to your company’s web and web applications. For more details, see the following review.
What is WAF?
WAF is a technology that can help web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between web applications and the internet. WAF usually protects web applications from attacks such as cross-site forgery, cross-site-scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and SQL injection. Typically, a WAF is network, hosted, or cloud based, and can be deployed via a reverse proxy within a website or application.
WAF is a form of layer 7 protocol protection and is not designed to protect against all types of cyberattacks. This mitigation method is usually a set of tools that creates comprehensive protection against a series of attack vectors. In this way, this technology can quickly detect and secure websites from the most malicious attacks, where traditional firewalls such as IDSes and IPSes are unable to do so.
How WAFs Work
WAF has a way of working by analyzing requests from HTTP and applying a number of rules that ensure which parts are correct or suspect. The main parts of HTTP that WAF analyzes are GET requests–which are used to get data from the server, and POST–which are used to send data to the server.
There are three ways that WAF uses to analyze and filter HTTP content, here are some of them.
Whitelisting
WAF will reject all requests by default and only allow requests that are trusted. There will be an IP address provided and security guaranteed. This method is an easier method than blacklisting. However, the drawback is the possibility of accidentally blocking traffic.
Blacklisting
This method will release data by default and use certain presets to block malicious traffic from web or web applications. Thus, it can be said that blacklisting is the use of certain regulations that can indicate danger. This method is considered more suitable for public websites because they get a lot of traffic from unknown IP addresses. However, blacklisting has drawbacks where it requires more effort to use, and must have more information to filter detailed information-based data.
Hybrid Security
As the name implies, this method utilizes both aspects of the whitelisting and blacklisting methods.
What are the Types of WAF?
WAF has three different technology-based types, be it network-based, hosted, or cloud-based.
Network-Based WAF
This type of WAF is completely hardware based and can reduce latency because it is installed locally and near the application. Many hardware-based WAF solution providers allow replication rules across their devices, which allows users to scale deployment and configuration. The drawback of this type of WAF is a matter of cost, because businesses will be asked for down payment and operational maintenance costs.
Host-Based WAF
This WAF can be fully integrated into the application code itself. The advantages are a more affordable cost and easy customization. Unfortunately, the use of WAF
this can be more difficult as it requires an app and relies on a local server. To manage this WAF, more people are needed, such as developers, system analysts, and DevOps/DevSecOps.
Cloud-Based WAF
The latter type of WAF provides a more affordable price for businesses that require minimal resources for WAF management. Cloud-based WAF types are easier to deploy and can be made available on a usage basis. Sometimes, businesses just need a simple domain system or proxy change to divert application traffic. Even if you have to entrust company traffic to third parties such as WAF solution providers, this step is guaranteed to protect applications across a wide spectrum of hosting locations. Not only that, WAF solution providers must also have the latest security system updates and can identify the most recent threats.
What are the benefits of WAF for your business
WAF offers a number of benefits over other traditional firewalls, as it has better visibility into sensitive data from the HTTP layer. WAF can prevent application layer attacks that usually bypass traditional firewalls. Here are some of the benefits provided by WAF.
- WAF can prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks which allow attackers to inject and execute malicious scripts in other users’ browsers.
- WAF can prevent Structured Query Language (SQL) attacks that cause any application to use SQL databases, and allows attackers to access and change important company data.
- WAF can also mitigate Web Session Hacking, which allows attackers to learn session IDs and pretend to be authorized users. The session ID will normally be stored in a cookie or URL.
- WAF is also able to prevent Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks which can make the network full of traffic so that it cannot serve users
Read more : Mengenal Phishing: Pengertian dan Cara Mengatasinya
Prevent Malicious Traffic to Your Web and Web Applications with Cloudflare WAF
As the world’s leading global cloud network and WAF solutions provider, Cloudflare offers WAF solutions capable of detecting, protecting, and analyzing web, web applications, and networks from cyber-attack threats.
The Cloudflare WAF solution is a smart, integrated and scalable solution to protect your business web applications without changing your existing infrastructure. Cloudflare also delivers always-on and on-demand protection with automated capabilities that can improve response times and overall requests up to 20 times faster. This capability has also brought Cloudflare several prestigious recognitions from Gartner, Frost & Sullivan, and Forrester.
By using a WAF solution from Cloudflare, you will get several advantages, including the following.
Faster Application Response
Get the capability where this solution reduces actual response times by up to 17 times.
Improved Data Delivery
Improve latency, response time, and overall requests.
Increased Loading Request Catalog
Increased catalog request speed up to 20 times.
Read more : Ketahui Alasan Internet Security Penting untuk Bentengi Bisnis Anda
Get Cloudflare WAF from Helios
Get Cloudflare WAF from Helios as Cloudflare’s first IT Value Added Distributor in Indonesia. Helios is committed to continuing to support and develop together with business partners in today’s ever-changing business era.
Helios also has experienced IT experts to assist businesses from various industries in implementing their IT solutions. Not only that, Helios IT experts are also certified to ensure the quality of the solution before and after implementation. For more information about Cloudflare, you can contact [email protected].
Penulis: Jeko Iqbal Reza
Content Writer CTI Group
