The digital economy is driving increased reliance on application services and need to deliver applications faster, smarter and more secured is critical. Web attacks are the leading cause of data breaches. Consider this alarming statistic: Organizations have an average of 765 web applications and these applications are the initial target of data breaches 53% of the time.

Next-gen firewalls (NGFW) claim “application-aware” features and can also stop some injection attacks (XSS, SQLi, and so on). However, NGFW still relies on passive filter detection and does not examine every HTTP request. Instead, it works much like an IPS, sampling requests and examining their first few bytes, not the full request payload. As a result, the application layer bypasses attacks against NGFW technologies are common. Nevertheless, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a firewall specifically designed to provide security for layer & application data.

Despite the best efforts of secure application- and patch-management processes, half of all applications remain vulnerable; Web application firewalls (WAF) protect your applications from data breaches by fixing vulnerabilities and stopping attacks. At a high level, Advanced WAF integrates behavioural analysis and dynamic code injections as its two main mechanisms available to more completely assess the threat associated with any given client session. 

Advanced WAF redefines application security to address the most prevalent threats organizations face today, which are:

• Automated attacks and bots that overwhelm existing security solutions.
• Web attacks that steal credentials and gain unauthorized access across user accounts.
• Application layer attacks that evade static security based on reputation and manual signatures.
• New attack surfaces and threats due to the rapid adoption of APIs.

Advanced WAF is built on proven F5 technology and goes beyond reactive security such as static signatures and reputation to proactively detect and mitigate bots, secure credentials and sensitive data, and defend against application denial-of-service (DoS).

To protect your organization and its reputation by maintaining the confidentiality, availability, and performance of the applications that are critical to your business, you will require leveraging on Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions with F5.

F5 is an application services company and industry leader who focus on the power of a proxy. Leverage F5’s unparalleled expertise in powering fast, secure, and available applications to help your customers solve today’s toughest application delivery challenges. It is offered as an appliance, virtual edition, and as a managed service (F5 Silverline® Web Application Firewall) —providing automated WAF services that meet complex deployment and management requirements while protecting your apps with great precision.

F5 APPLICATION SECURITY MANAGER (ASM)

F5 BIG-IP Application Security Manager™ (ASM), built on proven F5 Advanced WAF technology, redefines application security and addresses the most prevalent threats organizations face today. It proactively detects and mitigates bots, secures credentials and sensitive data, and defends against application DoS. Advanced WAF delivers flexible and comprehensive protections wherever apps reside and without compromising performance.

It is the most effective solution for guarding modern applications and data from existing and emerging threats while maintaining compliance with key regulatory mandates.

KEY BENEFITS

• Protect your web applications from vulnerabilities and web attacks.
• Identify and mitigate automated attacks by bots and other attack tools before they cause damages.
• Identify attacks using machine learning to detect and mitigate attacks with the highest level of accuracy

In the fast moving web environment, where hackers frequently change their tactics, a defence-in-depth strategy of deploying the AWAF in conjunction with a NGFW is essential for providing optimal protection. It is engineered to withstand evasion techniques, making it a perfect complement to your NGFW.

By Remi Aiyebogun