For so many companies around the world, website security vulnerabilities are not the utmost priority unless they are encountered by them. In the evolving digital world today, this is an extremely wrong tradition set by today’s companies. This incompetence may result in hacking and security breaches. The security vulnerability is a critical issue and must be prioritized by digital companies.
One of the solutions to these vulnerabilities is a website application firewall (WAF). If you can understand the kind of traffic that is appearing on your website, it will allow you to isolate the cyberattacks and welcome those visitors who have a specific objective when coming to your website. Before we look into how does a web application firewall works, we will look into its definition and its benefits.
What is a Web Application Firewall?
As a website owner or someone who has just created a website, you must be wondering that what is web application firewall. Don’t worry, you will have the answers regarding your website security here. A website application firewall enables the protection of an organization’s web applications by the inspection and filtration of traffic between the web application and the browser.
A web developer can use WAF to defend his platform from cyber attacks such as cross-site-scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and Structured Querry Language (SQL) injection. A WAF can be beneficial to an organization that builds eCommerce websites, provides online financial services, or integrates any other services that involve the collaboration between the customers or the business partners. In such cases, WAF can be beneficial in protecting its platform from data theft and fraud. However, as we know that WAF cannot overcome every kind of cyber security challenge, it works best as part of those tools that provide an application security program.
Benefits of WAF
A website application firewall provides crucial information for any business or a financial services website that handles customer data. Businesses utilize website firewalls to secure their platforms from targeted attacks, such as SQL injection. These targeted attacks result in security breaches. If these attacks are successful, they can also demotivate the business owner and may even lead to regulatory penalties. The external protection provided by the WAF protects the organization’s reputation and position in the industry.
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As WAF provides the website owners with application visibility required to create compliance with regulatory standards, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it can be beneficial from a compliance point of view too. All these benefits will enable the website owners to ensure web application security and improved protection of customer data from potential cyber-attacks.
1. Stateless WAFs vs Stateful WAFs
A website application firewall is a common denominator between the company’s web application and the potential requests coming from its internet browser. Through the reverse proxy, it is able to verify, isolate and block data packets as they move back and forth from a web application. By doing that, it is able to block any harmful traffic that can exploit your website data. You can utilize a website firewall in the form of a cloud-based solution or an appliance.
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The stateless WAFs, or the early WAFs, utilize static rules to check out any incoming threats via inbound requests to a free web server or a company’s web server. Via pattern identification, they create educated guesses about how the firewall will react to a certain attack.
Stateful WAFs are considered the second generation of WAFs. They provide more improved defenses than stateless WAFs. They can enrich the collected data with the required context and visualize the website’s landscape of potential threats. Since they visualize a broader and more in-depth threat view, they can detect critical issues appropriately, such as the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that try to ignore the security threats.
2. WAF vs RASP
Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) is another innovation used for visualizing and monitoring any potential threat to a platform. When you develop a business website, you must understand what RASP brings to your platform. It stops malicious attacks without the need for static rules. Rather than relying on predictions and estimates, RASP checks the application behavior to detect any potential malicious attack.
This can reduce many fake claims that can come because of using a website application firewall. Unlike the website firewall, RASP can give more precise information about your website security. As it uses the application itself, RASP can check out its security after the application update or if a new version of the app is developed. It is easier to integrate RASP in a continuous process because you can check the application behavior as you create modifications in the code instead of changing the static rules for WAF.
Achieve Success with WAF
Website security is an important part of website maintenance. When you build a website on an established platform, such as Strikingly, the protection becomes even more crucial. You cannot afford to leave your website data fragile for the website attackers to feed. You must have a solid approach to keep them away from your website. Therefore, when you wonder what is WAF, you must also be aware of the way you can achieve success from it. Below, we have mentioned some of the tips which allow you to be successful with a website application firewall.
1. Ensure that your WAF meets the Security Targets
There are numerous website application firewall solutions for you on the table. All of them have unique features and techniques for both the identification and prevention of cyber-attacks and other malicious intent. Therefore, when you understand what is WAF, you must select the correct firewall which compliments your application security objectives.
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At Strikingly, we make it easy for you to overcome the technical problems faced by our users. This allows you to look into the ways of growing your global business while not being hesitant about your website design and maintenance. We are available all the time to provide support to our customers via live chat. If you have any queries before registering with us, feel free to submit them right away.
2. Evaluate and Verify your WAF Solution
If you want to understand how does a web application firewall work or be a part of your application security program, you must test a WAF solution before making a conclusion on its implementation. Your choice may also depend on whether you have no code apps or applications with full development.
If you have applications that don’t have any code, you will avoid the risk of data manipulation or leaks. Via this strategy, you can understand and visualize how your website application firewall can work in correspondence with the application security tools. These tools are not mutually exclusive and can be a part of the most exquisite coverage.
3. Evaluate the In-house Resouces that you Require
When you are verifying your website firewall solution, you must consider the in-house resources that you must integrate into your working plans and make the most out of. You may come to the conclusion that you may have to build external capabilities or functionalities in your security setup. For example, you may think that implementing a website application firewall will enable you to change your current security processes created by your team.
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If you have just created a company website, you must know that your website is the most fragile when it comes to malicious attacks. The reason is not that how dangerous those attacks are, but because of how inexperienced you are to combat them. Therefore, you must understand all the details regarding data theft and fraud. In an evolving digital world, creating an appropriate website security program has never been this important. However, website owners are tending to use web application firewalls to protect their website and customer data. Hence, make sure that you do not show negligence regarding this factor and quickly integrate the security firewalls into your website.
Do you need WAF or Are There any Alternatives?
As cyberattacks are becoming increasingly common among website platforms, it is inevitable that website owners around the world must use a website application firewall to combat these attacks. Businesses must find a way to protect themselves and their client from malicious intent. Organizations associated with eCommerce, financial services, and many other web-based products always have the danger of security breaches. This danger leaves them prone to potential regulatory disciplines. Therefore, you must integrate a website firewall into your working plans.
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One of the ways of protecting the website is by making it SSL-enabled. All Strikingly websites using the free MyStrikingly.com subdomain are SSL-enabled by default. The websites with custom domains must be connected properly with our recommended settings to get SSL activated. This functionality creates a lock icon alongside your URL address bar. Our platform makes it easy for the users to get the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate without having to indulge in any overhead costs. There is no need for you to go through the entire process of getting a security certificate. If you have any more questions regarding Strikingly, feel free to email us or talk to our Happiness Officers via live chat.
