Benefits of Web application firewall solutions

Bkjia.com integrated message] in SOX, HIPAA, glba and ca SB-1386 and other network security standards implementation of the times, a successful attack will bring to your business website how much loss? To protect sensitive enterprise data legally, you need to solve the following problems: how to protect the key resources of Web resources? How much investment is required to protect these valuable application resources? How can we know that we have been protected, especially when the application itself can only provide limited security records? How can we protect custom applications?

The Web browser is now a standard user interface for internal and external access and applications. Compared with the compilation of fat client programs for each application, the Web method greatly saves investment. Therefore, web applications are rapidly promoted in the IT field.

At first, the purpose of designing Web applications to use Web browsing is to share or access static information, rather than focusing on security design. The transition from a relatively secure fat client to a relatively insecure browser-thin client brings two challenges: reducing application security and increasing security costs. Many web Front-end applications are not even considered to be attacked during development ..

In this context, a new technology, Web application firewall. It can effectively reduce the implementation cost of website security. Barracuda application firewall is the leading product of this emerging product.

The old method does not work.

In the early days, deploying static Web servers in the DMZ zone was a standard security model. The Web Data Center was built out of the Enterprise Firewall so that visitors could freely access the Web site, however, you cannot freely access your internal network and system. Currently, accessing the Web application system through the Web is not only for internal users of the enterprise, but also directly exposed to the Internet for Internet users to access, the traditional DMZ concept is no longer applicable to current security requirements.

Today, the best approach to Web Application Security is to protect a few key Web transaction applications. The so-called best method can be summarized in one sentence-patching code. The security of Web applications relies entirely on the constant updating of programs by developers.

However, the web system is always under the threat of hackers unless the developer finds and patches vulnerabilities in a timely manner before the hacker. When the number of programs is small, it is feasible to maintain the application security in the patch mode. However, if an application contains dozens of hundreds of applications, the working cost of code patching will be extremely high, this security maintenance model is almost impossible. However, WAF can prevent unknown application vulnerabilities and reduce maintenance costs to improve availability.

Reduce the loss caused by insecurity

Given the complexity of the program, especially those systems with a large number of programs, Web application developers cannot or cannot identify and fix all program vulnerabilities. The vast majority of enterprises often have many security vulnerabilities when running their programs, regardless of internal use or external user access. The media reports the loss caused by Insecure code almost every day. In addition to these public messages, there are also many attacks that are not reported. In addition, more attacks are not detected, and some important information may be obtained by hackers.

By blocking the methods that hackers use to access applications, the application firewall can prevent hackers from intruding into vulnerable programs without changing the application code! In this way:

◆ Reduce the possibility of leakage of customer data, trade secrets, employee information, financial information and other sensitive data.

◆ Reduce the possibility of legal proceedings due to information leakage.

◆ Reduce the possibility that the company's share price may fall, its image may be damaged, and its customer reputation may be reduced due to security issues.

◆ Early compliance with relevant regulations on enterprise network security, such as SOX, GLB, HIPAA, ca sb-386)

The method used by hackers to prevent attacks by immediately repairing the program and preventing attacks by the maximum program to reduce losses.

Accelerate Application Usage

Currently, a new web application must be tested by a vulnerability detection tool before it can be used. In general, such detection can always detect many vulnerabilities in the application, but more importantly, it may cause the loss of customers. If you do not have an application firewall, You must fix every vulnerability in the program and perform tests repeatedly until you are sure that there is no vulnerability, so that the application can be marketed. This may lead to missed business opportunities. If the application firewall is deployed, you can immediately test the application. If you find that the vulnerability is protected by the application firewall, you can release the application first without worrying about being attacked, then, you can easily schedule vulnerability fixes and fix these vulnerabilities in later versions. This means that you can release applications earlier, while these applications produce economic benefits earlier.

Imagine how much economic effect will it bring to you When you invest 0.5 million yuan to develop a web application and put it into use three months earlier?

Easy to maintain

If an application generates economic value, it will upgrade and solidify into a product. Application Firewall plays two important roles in application upgrading and productization:

First, it is obvious that the application firewall can prevent system attacks. Second, if you are under attack or you discover a vulnerability in your system through audit and evaluation, you may need to take the application system offline until the vulnerability is repaired, the patch is tested and applied. However, if the application firewall protects your vulnerabilities, you can continue to run the application system while patching the system. For example, according to the law, users in the German financial industry need to perform 7 days of patch testing. In this way, the application cannot be hacked during the patch period. Only the application firewall can comply with regulations without interrupting applications.

Another example is an old application. If the team that originally developed and maintained the application is no longer there, if a serious vulnerability is found in a later audit or test, the cost of fixing this vulnerability may be too high to bear. However, if there is application firewall protection, we can continue to use this seemingly hopeless application online.

Optimize Operation

Patch Management

Providers of software platforms (such as OS, DBMS, App Server, and packaged applications) need to constantly provide security patches for their products. Sometimes these patches are very important and need to be upgraded immediately, otherwise, the system will suffer a huge damage. The application firewall can protect these applications until the vulnerabilities are fixed. In this way, you don't have to worry about it for 7*24 hours. You can easily set a patch Upgrade Plan, such as using the windows plan manager.

Log merge and Management

Application Firewall records all web traffic data: valid or blocked attack records. These logs are sorted in order and contain timestamps and data tags. This makes the data very secure. The advantage is that you have an Integrated Application Log, so you do not have to query logs on each server. Therefore, you may spend 2-3 hours a day. What's more, do you trust the accuracy of low-security logs?

Concealed internal structure, easy to publish applications

The application firewall converts internal directories to external access addresses through Web address translation without exposing or re-configuring internal domain names. After an internal address is converted to an external name without association, it is difficult for malicious visitors to know their access paths and attack targets. In this way, you can release applications faster.

Effective management of security policies

When a new service is added to a web application, it automatically inherits the security policies in the system. However, the security policies of new web applications can be copied and pasted to other applications, then modify the security policy to improve the security policy management efficiency.

SSL Management

Barracuda web application firewall supports SSL encryption and decryption.

Initialize SSL

Barracufish application firewall can encrypt applications. The setting method is simple. Enable the SSL initialization function, which will encrypt applications using SSL. In this way, you do not have to modify the application to support SSL, nor add hardware to the server to solve the problem, nor cause service response to slow down.

Certificate Authorization & Certificate Merging

Barracuda web application firewall can publish and Manage SSL certificates. You can purchase a public certificate for barracuda for Internet publishing, while the internal system does not need to be purchased separately. You can issue a certificate to your business partners so that they can use SSL to access an authorized application.

Features of barracuda Web Application Firewall

The above description is the general feature of barracuda application firewall. In addition, its high-end product NetContinuum has special performance.

ASIC-based architecture

NetContinuum is the only application firewall on the market based on ASIC chips. The extremely high configuration will bring about:

◆ The performance is greatly enhanced to support larger traffic, improve availability, ensure system stability, and integrate SSL Acceleration.

◆ The other method is to install the software in the commercial operating system under the Wintel architecture, but this will lead to performance degradation, and the system itself will also have more vulnerabilities.

◆ Centralized security management of multiple servers on one device, which greatly facilitates management and provides the best security assurance.

◆ Network device management mode. Its operations are similar to the management of network devices, which is relatively simple, rather than as complicated as server management.

◆ Integrates the Server Load balancer function and supports caching to provide high performance and high throughput.

Enhancement

Barracufish NC-1000 is the only application firewall and network firewall certified by ICSA. It includes a complete firewall function that supports FTP and SSL Secure FTP. For data centers, it is the only firewall that supports layer-2 Security.

NC-1000 supports traffic management, so that the web data center can easily expand the server and application, and quickly improve performance. At the same time, security is also enhanced.

Conclusion

Today, access to application servers through browsers is becoming mainstream, and barracuda web Application Firewall is a network security device that can bring the best return to your website.