Web application firewalls help monitor, filter and protect web applications from malicious attacks and unwanted internet traffic, including bots, injection and application-layer denial of service (DoS).
The WAF will help you establish and manage rules for avoiding internet threats, includin cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection file inclusions, SQL injection, brute force attacks etc.
Web application firewall are deployed to protect web-facing applications and collect access logs for compliance, and analytics.
Web application firewalls help protect business applications deployed in the public cloud, on-premises, and in multicloud environments with access controls based on geolocation data, whitelisted, and backlisted IP addresses, Hypertext Transfer Protocol Uniform Resource Locater (HTTP URL), and HTTP header.
WAFs can identify and block malicious bot traffic with an advanced set of verification methods, inducing JavaScript, Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart with CAPTCHAs, device interpreting, and human interaction algorithms.
WAFs protect internet-facing applications from attacks as a result of integrated threat intelligence that aggregates from multiple sources and Open Web Application Security Project detection rules.
Some of the tasks performed by Web Application Firewalls include:
Testing URLs:
The WAF will look at the URL to spot anything out of the ordinary. That might consist of unexpected variables or the presence of SQL, indicating a potential injection attack.
Filtering out spam traffic:
Most WAFs will look for common spam keywords in the content that is being sent to the web application. Additional tests may be performed before the user is challenged or redirected away from the application.
Blocking DDoS attacks:
WAFs can be used to prevent DDoS attacks by limiting the number of requests that IPs can make for a web application. Traffic is diverted or blocked before your web application can reach the point of failure. You can also filter and block access to protocols like FTP or SSH.
Checking access to sensitive pages:
WAFs can double check the credentials of visitors before they are allowed to reach specific pages. They can use IP whitelists and blacklists to filter out illegitimate visitors in addition to other rules.
Remove potential XSS and SQL injection attacks:WAFs will check for the presence of code that is commonly used in Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and SQL injection attacks.
Malicious bot identification:
WAFs will look for common Internet bots that scan or attempt to exploit web applications, stopping them before they reach the application.
Traffic filtering :
You can monitor and filter the traffic that is sent to your website application, diverting traffic based on special rules that you create.
Geolocation and IP intelligence:Visitors from specific hosts and regions can be identified and redirected.
Analytics:
Most WAFs will provide you with detailed analytics on the location and identity of visitors to your website application.
Web-application firewalls use deep packet inspection to address the limitations of network firewalls by applying rules at the HTTP layer. This means they are able to parse and analyze HTTP methods such as GET and POST, ensure the syntax of the traffic falls correctly within the protocol, and gives Web site operators the chance to block many Web-based attacks.
Web-application firewalls, like their network counterparts, may either monitor traffic and log anomalies or actively block inbound or outbound connections.
Inbound connections might be blocked if a parameter contains a pattern common to the cross-site scripting or SQL injection. Outbound connections might be blocked if the page’s content appears to contain a database error message or match credit-card number patterns.
Configuring and tuning a Web-application firewall to your site takes time and effort guided by security personnel with knowledge of how the site works.
However, even simple configurations can stop automated scans and security breaches taking place at a fundamental level.