

Rules contain a statement that defines the inspection criteria, and an action to take if a web request meets the criteria. A default action for the Web ACL is set that indicates whether to block or allow requests that pass the rules inspections. Rules define criteria for inspecting web requests and specify how to handle requests that match the criteria.

You create a Web ACL and define its protection strategy by adding rules. Web Access Control List (Web ACL) is used to protect a set of AWS resources. The value of a WAF comes in part from the speed and ease with which policy modification can be implemented, allowing for faster response to varying attack vectors during a DDoS attack, rate limiting can be quickly implemented by modifying WAF policies.ĪWS WAF supports and can be used to control how resources like Amazon CloudFront distribution, Amazon API Gateway REST API, Application Load Balancer (ALB), or AWS AppSync GraphQL API respond to web requests. These policies aim to protect against vulnerabilities in the application by filtering out malicious traffic.

While a proxy server protects a client machine’s identity by using an intermediary, a WAF is a type of reverse-proxy, protecting the server from exposure by having clients pass through the WAF before reaching the server.Ī WAF operates through a set of rules often called policies. How does it work? By deploying a WAF for a web application, a shield is placed between the web application and the internet. A WAF is a protocol layer 7 defense (in the OSI model), and is not designed to defend against all types of attacks. It typically protects web applications from attacks such as cross-site forgery, cross-site-scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and SQL injection, among others. WAF helps protect web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between a web application and the internet. This blog will explain how to set up WAF and scan for vulnerabilities. To solve this problem, Cloudifyops implemented a Web Application Firewall (WAF). The application layer security needs to be enabled to secure the environment from DDos attacks and application vulnerabilities. A customer environment in AWS has to meet the internal compliance standards.
