Web security is a major concern today for each and every website owner. It is very crucial to secure the data of the customers in order to maintain good relationship with them.
The Web Application Firewalls are used by a majority of the companies these days to secure their online business.
Magento development company also supports the Web Application Firewalls to enhance the security of the websites. The application layer attacks are very frequent these days and are a big danger to the web security.
The attackers use a variety of ways for penetrating inside the websites and try to damage and modify the information present on the website.
They try to find various loopholes in the system and expose the infrastructure in order to capture the confidential data of the customers.
There are multiple targets of the attackers. The multiple types of sites are attacked through the injection attacks and the web application layer is damaged by the attackers.
Either the web application layer is damaged or the database where the important information of the customers is stored is tried to compromise.
The web application attacks will degrade the performance of the website and will create a negative impact on the brand and the business performance. It is better to be cautious and take precautions to stop these types of attacks and protect our Magento development.
There are three types of primary attacks:
SQL Injection
In this type of attack called the SQL Injection, the attackers try to enter bogus database queries in order to infiltrate the critical databases and overwhelm the applications.
Cross site scripting
The attackers try to enter a false script that is then executed in the user’s browser for capturing the vital information of the users.
Malicious file execution
The attackers try to enter hostile data through remote file inclusion and try to exploit the applications by damaging or modifying the code.
What is a web application firewall?
A security measure that is deployed between the Web client and the Web Server whose task is to inspect every request and response being made. The Web traffic is inspected very deeply to protect the Web application layer against any attack.
The abnormal and malicious traffic is identified and made isolated so that it doesn’t reach the web server and in this way, it is protected from getting damaged.
Web application firewalls can be hardware devices, software or even both just like the other types of firewalls. The web application firewall software is available as an inline web server or as a web server plugin.
The GET and the POST requests that are sent through the HTTP and HTTPS are analyzed thoroughly by the web application firewall and configured firewall rules are applied to filter out the malicious web traffic.
There are mainly three types of firewalls such as the stateful, stateless and application firewalls.
The specialized application firewalls are the web application firewalls which analyze the content of the packets and not only the headers.
The development of the web application firewalls is so strong that it doesn’t miss the malicious content hidden in the packets and stop them before reaching the web server.
Your organization can be helped with the PCI-DSS and the HIPAA regulations when the web application firewall is properly implemented.
The security administrators can effectively monitor the web server’s security when the logs of the web application firewall are integrated into a SIEM solution.
The web application layer being the topmost layer of the OSI model is the favorite target of the attackers.
The web pages of the websites are not static now and the dynamic data of the customers are passed on to the web servers when they fill the signup forms or they do a heavy transaction through the payment gateways.
The web application firewall comes very helpfully for protecting these actions of the users. The WAF can challenge the visitor to enter a CAPTCHA if any suspicious activity is found.
The CAPTCHAS are very useful as they block the bots which are deployed by the attackers to enter into the system and capture the ongoing activity.
Difference between WAF And network firewall
The main difference between the WAF and the traditional firewall is that the WAF does more than just blocking the specific IP addresses or port numbers.
The web application firewall inspects the web traffic very closely to find any vulnerability and possible attacks done by the hackers such as the SQL Injection attack, cross-site scripting attack or any other harmful attack.
The web application firewall being customizable allows you to write application-specific rules for your own website.
For example, if the platform on which your application is being hosted contains a known vulnerability but there is no chance to patch it till some time then you can try to block the malicious traffic that exploits the vulnerability by writing your own rule for the application. The bad traffic will get blocked until the vulnerable system gets patched up.
Different working patterns of WAF
According to the Magento development company, the web application firewalls can differ in various manners. The hardware WAF requires a dedicated security staff to install the firewall and for monitoring the hardware usage.
This might be an expensive solution for your business but it gives much surety for controlling the web security. The cloud-based versions of the application security solutions are provided by many web application firewall vendors.
The detection technology in the WAF can differ from one WAF to another. The pattern matching or the signature-based detection models are utilized by the web application firewall mostly.
The incoming traffic is analyzed based on the previous events and past rules. This helps in differentiating the good and the bad IP addresses.
Thus, this was a basic overview about the web application firewall which is a necessity for the business owners to implement for their websites in order to enhance the security. Select the best WAF to secure your Magento development!
