Bandwidth
A Web Application Firewall's (WAF) bandwidth, which is commonly measured in megabits
per second (Mbps) or gigabits per second (Gbps), is the greatest amount of data that the WAF
can process or analyse in a given amount of time. It stands for the WAF's ability to manage
incoming and outgoing traffic while preserving top security and operational efficiency.
How to maintain the bandwidth of 20 Mbps for the WAF?
1. Recognize Traffic Patterns: Assess the traffic of the WAF to ascertain the bandwidth
needs.
2. Optimize WAF Configuration: Make necessary adjustments to rule sets and
inspection levels to optimize the WAF’s performance and security.
3. Implement Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Offload static content delivery to
CDNs to reduce WAF load and bandwidth usage.
4. Enable Rate Limiting and Traffic Shaping: Control traffic flow through the WAF to
manage bandwidth usage and prioritize traffic.
5. Monitor Performance Metrics: To find bottlenecks and improve performance, track
memory, CPU, and bandwidth utilization.
6. Implement Caching and Compression: Reduce the size of data processed by the
WAF through caching and compression to optimize bandwidth.
7. Regular Performance Testing: Conduct tests to ensure the WAF infrastructure can
handle expected traffic volumes without performance issues.
Bot Protection
The term "bot protection" describes the precautions used to protect against dangerous
automated software programmes, sometimes referred to as "bots," which can carry out a
variety of functions online. Numerous tasks, such as site scraping, account takeover, content
scraping, spamming, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults, and more, can be put into
these bots. Bot protection seeks to preserve the availability, integrity, and security of web
applications and online services by identifying and lessening the effects of these automated
attacks.
Here is a simplified diagram of how it works.
Features of the bot protection
1. IP fencing: It is the most straightforward form of defence. Use WAF blacklisting to
prevent requests from a particular IP address if you are aware that they are malicious.
It is predicated on a static set of data.
2. Geo-fencing: The WAF uses a technology called geo-fencing to erect a virtual
boundary or perimeter around a particular region of land. The WAF has the authority
to permit or prohibit access to features or material based on a user's IP address being
within a predetermined range.
3. Request Inspection: The WAF's plan is to exercise total control over requests and
responses includes inspection. Through content analysis, the WAF can differentiate
between valid and malicious requests by comparing request contents to known
good/bad strings and values.
4. Header Inspection: Through header analysis, WAF finds patterns or abnormalities
that can point to malicious activity, including a rogue user agent or questionable
cookie data.
Important details including the user agent, content type, cookies, and HTTP method
are all contained in the header of an HTTP request. Each consists of text strings and
can be combined in a variety of ways. Therefore, instead of depending on
predetermined allowlists, WAF inspects each request header separately to find
possibly dangerous values.
5. Response Inspection: The analysis of the responses that the web application sends
back to the client is the main goal of response inspection. It guarantees that the
answers are authentic and unaltered by malevolent automated systems. This may
entail looking for odd redirects, manipulated material, or inserted scripts.
6. Security Rules: These set forth the standards for recognising and obstructing
malicious bot activity. These criteria may be based on several variables, including
known attack signatures, IP reputation, user-agent strings, request patterns, and
behavioural analysis. In order to configure the WAF to efficiently detect and mitigate
threats linked to bots, security rules are necessary.
7. DDoS rate limits: It limits how many queries a specific IP address can make to a
server in a predetermined amount of time. Any requests that exceed this restriction are
blocked. Usually, the rate limit is set based on a predefined threshold that is deemed
safe for regular traffic. A WAF can successfully stop an attacker from flooding the
server with requests by enforcing DDoS rate restrictions. This makes it possible for
business activities to carry on normally and for authorised users to maintain access to
the server.
8. Bot Mitigation: WAFs have the ability to examine cookies that are sent by the
browser and compare them to databases like Udger, Checktor, and
Whatisyourbrowser DB that contain known bot cookies.
Among the elements of bot control are, but are not restricted to:
CAPTCHA challenges
Rate limiting
Bot pretender
Web Scraping Protection
Bot intelligence (Fingerprints, IP, behavioural patterns)
Proactive Monitoring
One of the most important parts of making sure online applications are secure and available is
proactive monitoring for an online Application Firewall (WAF). It entails constant
monitoring, analysis, and real-time reaction to any irregularities or possible threats.
How it works?
1. Traffic Analysis: Keeps an eye on online activity and looks for unusual
HTTP/HTTPS queries.
2. Log analysis: To find security incidents and policy infractions, gathers and examines
WAF records.
3. Threat Intelligence Integration: Identifies known threats and malicious IP addresses
by integrating with threat feeds.
4. Alerting system: Notifies users via email, SMS, or connection with incident
management systems when risks are recognised in real time.
5. Reporting & Visualisation: Offers in-depth analysis and graphical depictions of
security incidents and web traffic patterns.
6. Scalability: Guarantees the capacity to manage large amounts of data and logs
effectively.
7. Performance Impact: Reduces the web application's performance overhead.
8. Automation: Uses automatic reaction systems to mitigate threats instantly.
9. Integration: Complying with legal requirements and integrating seamlessly with the
current security architecture.
References
1. Google.com. (2024). Redirect Notice. [online] Available at: https://www.google.com/url?
sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fseon.io%2Fresources%2Fguide-to-bot-mitigation
%2F&psig=AOvVaw26HG3xnCLXwc3juECwrPQs&ust=1711858730908000&source=imag
es&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCMi-s-
6Qm4UDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ [Accessed 30 Mar. 2024].
2. Indusface. (2019). What is WAF and How Does WAF Works? | Indusface Blog. [online]
Available at: https://www.indusface.com/blog/how-web-application-firewall-works/
[Accessed 30 Mar. 2024].
