DIGITAL ASSET PROTECTION

A Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a firewall filtering, monitoring, and blocking HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet. It operates through a set of rules called policies that filter the content of specific web applications to block malicious traffic. The difference between WAF and proxies is that proxies protect the users while the WAF provides security to the servers.

It is deployed to protect a specific set of web applications. Deploying a WAF on the web application acts like a shield between the web application and the server, protecting the server.

Web Application Firewall:

Deployed as a network-based, host-based, or cloud-based solution through a reverse proxy, a WAF is placed in front of one or more websites or applications. It protects your website and web applications from hacks, brute force attacks, DDoS attacks, cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and zero-day exploits.

While regular firewalls serve as safety gates between servers, web application firewalls are specifically designed to protect web applications by inspecting HTTP(s), XML, SOAP, and SPDY protocols used in web services and SSL/encrypted traffic inspection. When malicious activity is detected, it blocks attempts to compromise the system.

Application Memory Firewall:

Fileless attacks are increasing and are more likely to succeed than traditional file-based malware. Most defenses seek to detect them by recognizing strange behavior on the network — but this is an after-the-event approach.

Application Memory Firewall seeks to detect malicious fileless behavior while still in memory and before any harmful effect can occur. It is the first solution to protect memory at the application level while scrutinizing application process memory to ensure that your applications only behave as intended and aren’t corrupted by memory exploits.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN A WEB APPLICATION FIREWALL

Your web application users expect you to keep them secure. Installing and adequately activating a web application firewall protects your users and business from data breaches, attacks, and malware infections.

Every WAF has different features. The most common and expected features include detecting and blocking known hacking methods, applying virtual security patches to decrease vulnerabilities in the system, and finally, detecting, blocking, and mitigating Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

A good WAF should include a variety of methods to detect and thwart attacks, including signature-based and behavior analysis. It should also include detailed logs and audit trails to investigate security incidents.

It should also be noted that inspecting traffic takes time, so the introduction of a WAF shouldn’t affect application loading times or speeds. To this effect, most WAFs are accompanied by Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) that allow users to access a cached version of your application stored across different geographical locations. Often, these locations are closer and faster for users to connect to.

Cloud-based WAFs are more powerful than hardware in mitigating DDoS attacks due to bandwidth limitations. So it’s best to understand how much traffic you expect before choosing the type of WAF for your web applications.

Application Memory Firewall is expected to map the correct behavior of any application down to the memory level and instantly identify and stop deviations caused by fileless attacks and fileless malware. Memory protection prevents fileless and in-memory exploits that bypass conventional security, delivering unprecedented speed and accuracy while eliminating false positives.

HOW IVALUE CAN HELP

iValue can design and implement web application firewall solutions for your network to protect your web applications hosted on-premise, on the cloud, or virtual platforms.

Our WAF solutions offer rich graphical reporting capabilities, which may include reporting from other detection solutions present across your infrastructure. Reports can be generated in pre-defined and customizable templates to review security status and streamline the demonstration of compliance with PCI, SOX, HIPAA, FISMA, and other compliance standards.

Staying ahead of ever-evolving cyber attacks requires constant work. We offer our best-in-class integrated attack analytics and a single intuitive pane of glass dashboards for vulnerability research and malware analysis.

Our goal is to address today’s security incidents and tomorrow’s emerging threats to your web applications. We can secure your business with minimal false positive/negative rates and mitigate zero-day vulnerabilities.