Modern technology and infrastructure demand deployments of new services that make the working ways easier, faster, and at a higher speed. Building and deploying secure and safe applications is critical work, and this requires a process of shifting as there is always a threat that the companies fear. Thus for this only, the companies are working day and night to get rid of this pain of maintaining a cloud security posture.
Today in this article we are discussing the capabilities called AWS Managed Rules for AWS WAF. This is the service that helps in protecting your applications without having a need to create or manage new rules directly or indirectly. Now, this is also a fact that AWS Web Application Services have entirely launched its new method and with improved console and API that is making it easier to keep the applications safe and secure.
AWS WAF stands for a web application firewall. In the last post, we have shared what WAF services are all about. And today we are getting one step ahead and would like to share and define certain rules that overall gives the control over which traffic to allowance and to which denial and completely to your application. Here you can use AWS WAF to help in blocking some of the common issues or threats that definitely affect the security of the data. These common issues are SQL injections or cross-site scripting attacks. Moreover, this service can also be used by you with Amazon API Gateway, Amazon Cloud-Front, and Application Load Balancer.
As there is a famous saying “change is inevitable”, so today in this modern era it’s getting a number of improvements. The best is to create certain rules that are straightforward and trust us this method is one of the best as well as a reliable method. The assistance here is to provide an introduction of the OR operator, with this allowing the evolution that may previously require multiple rules. Moving further the API experience too has greatly improved. This has actually helped because the complex rules can now be easily created and updated with a single API call.
Moving further with the article, the limit that was defined is removed. It is like the limit for ten per web access control list (ACL) with the introduction of the web ACL capacity unit (WCU) is been removed. Indeed with the switch of this WCUs will be allowing the creation of hundreds of new rules. Each rule added to a web access control list (ACL) consumes capacity based on the type of rule being deployed, and each web ACL has a defined WCU limit.
Using the New AWS WAF
Let us further discuss and find out the ways and process of using AWS WAF in an accurate as well detailed way. Below mentioned is the list for the same. Kindly have an understanding of this.
- The first very step is to make sure that we need to look at some of the changes and turn on AWS managed rules for AWS WAF. It is like you need to go to AWS WAF and then switch over to the new version.
- Creation of new web ACL with addition to a current API gateway resource on the account.
- Now there is a need to add some rules to the web ACL. The new rules engine gets improves with the integration of new and updated AWS WAF. Statements can be combined with AND, OR, and NOT operators, allowing for more complex rule logic.
- Simple rule will be created that helps in blocking any unwanted request that is being used in the HTTP method POST. Another cool feature is support for multiple text transformations
- JSON objects now define web ACL rules (and web ACLs themselves), making them versionable assets you can match with your application code. You can also use these JSON documents to create or update rules with a single API call.
How to Use AWS Managed Rules for AWS WAF
Now let us proceed further and play with something totally new along with some core details. The newness that we are talking about is AWS Managed Rules. This step and rule give immediate protection to the server and the threat. It is the responsibility of the AWS threat research team to maintain the rules so that with this process new rules that are being added can be monitored and additional threats can be identified.
Additional rule sets are available on the AWS Marketplace. Choose a managed rule group, add it to your web ACL, and AWS WAF immediately helps protect against common threats. Here the selection of a rule group is to make sure that the server is saving against SQL attacks. This in other words is said to have to enable of core ruleset. It is that the security risks are been described in OWASP top 10 publications, and these are common threats and risk. This process is been covered in the core ruleset.
As soon as the creation of web ACL along with the changes is propagated, the app will be protected from a complete range of attacks like SQL injections. This method of work actually helps to shape up the work and getting things right.
Few Things and Information to be Known
Let us have a further discussion and take a quick tour of the benefits of this totally new and improved AWS WAF. Before you head to the console to turn it on, there are a few things to keep in mind.
- The latest and the newest forms of AWS WAF is supporting only by AWS Cloud Formation. This step allows us to create and update the web ACL and rules using the template of Cloud Formation.
- There is no additional charge or hidden cost is there that would be required for using AWS Managed Rules. Each set of managed rules is counted as a single rule.
- You will not be charged for the individual rules inside AWS Managed Rules. If you subscribe to managed rules from an AWS Marketplace seller, you will be charged the managed rules price set by the seller.
- Costing for the entire AWS WAF does not get changed and for knowing the cost and budget of the work, the best is to connect with the team of developers and engineers.
Benefits and Advantages of AWS WAF Services
Till now each one of us has read about the rules that are defined for successful AWS WAF services. Now let us proceed further and check for some of the core as well as useful benefits of the services. These areas mentioned below.
Web Application Benefits
Protection: The use of WAFs’ work is to make sure that a strong shield is developed so as to protect unauthorized data usage on the website or applications. The core benefit of WAFs is for any online business, and most importantly for e-commerce or online retailers, that rely on storing private user data securely. It is one of the biggest facts that without adequate cybersecurity, customer information will be vulnerable to web hackers, and if it becomes common knowledge that a website has suffered a major cyberattack, it can cost the company not only business but also customer trust.
The biggest and serious issue that comes up is the web attack that may ruin the data of the company and thus for the protection of it, WAF is the best option. It helps in protecting all incoming and outgoing traffic to your company’s website. The WAF can automatically filter out malicious web traffic and it will allow your business to manually decide who they want to block from their site.
Automated Patches
The idea is considered to be a great choice in which the process is to be running vulnerability scans regularly. Ideally, if you are an e-commerce business you would be running scans once a quarter or several times a month. Just think for a second that what might happen if there is a discovery that of a vulnerability in your website or application. Here there is a need to have the resources to patch the application or fix the problem quickly, but most businesses won’t have the expertise or skill immediately available.
Stops Data Leakage
For gathering data, it is not at all difficult for hackers to hack and collect the data. Unless, you are aware that the sharing of the data is been compromised, and for this purpose detecting them can be tricky too. Data leakage can be caused by something as insignificant as a malicious error message presented to a user, so if your application is harboring critical data, such as source code or credit card numbers, then it’s very easy to become subject to a leak.
Also, when said this, if the data is gets leaked it turns to be a disaster. It is a WAF that will assist in scanning every request for the web application user, and during this process, if anything appears to be unusual the AWF stops it from leaving the network. This, entire service can even be customized as per the need and requirement of the clients and this is an only possible post having an understanding of it.
Wrapping Up:
While reading this article it is very much clear that what the service is all about why there is a need to have the rules defined. To sum up, in short, it is one of the best and most unique ways out of the service. Feel free to connect with us over the call or via an email to understand the work in more details.
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