In the digital era, every business owner is aware of having an online presence for the growth of businesses. But business owners are not aware that they need web application security too as well as an online web presence.
All businesses, no matter how big or small, should have web security. A web application allows customers to interact with their services & products; an insecure web application also allows hackers to interact with their weaknesses or vulnerabilities.
What is a Web Application Firewall?
A Web Application Firewall or WAF is a set of rules which examine and monitor the traffic before it reaches the application server and from the application server. It can be network-based, host-based or cloud-based.
Web Application Firewall provides application layer protection against OWASP top 10 attacks including DDoS attacks, SQL injections, Command injections, session hijacking, Zero-day exploits and many more. It is also considered a reverse proxy.
How does a Web Application Firewall or WAF Actually Work?
A Web Application Firewall analyzes all incoming both GET and POST-based HTTP requests before they reach the server which applies a set of rules to determine whether the traffic is legitimate or illegitimate. In such a way, a web application firewall identifies and filters out illegitimate traffic and protects servers from illegitimate traffic.
Why Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
Traditional firewalls like Network firewalls & Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) are good at stopping illegitimate traffic and providing network-level security. But they don’t have the ability to stop SQL injection, session hijacking, cross-site scripting or can say application layer attacks.
Over recent years, it has been observed that the number, frequency, and impact of web application attacks has been increased.
Today’s organizations need a robust security solution to protect Internet-facing applications against application layer attacks. To secure web applications from application attacks, for example, SQL injection, cross-site forgery, XSS injection, session hijacking, etc. every organization must have web application security.
Today’s advanced WAFs have additional features like SSL/TLS-based attack protection, Inbuilt DDoS detection and mitigation capabilities, load balancing, virtual patching, API Integration and many more.
Conclusion
As hackers are targeting web applications from all around the world in their most upstream form, costing businesses and organizations a lot of money and a loss of brand reputation. It’s often necessary to have at least one web security solution. Recent web application attacks demonstrate the urgent need for advanced Web Application Firewall Solutions.
Do you want to know how well your company is protected from web application attacks and other multiple cyber attacks? Contact us today!