Welcome to the Knowledge Portal Video series.
Today we are going to talk about one of the most awaited topics for the Web security, which is the
Web application firewall.
Now, generally when we talk about a web application, then web application in a very simple term is
a software application which resides on a web server and which runs on a client browser.
Now, if we take a look at a very simple web application, then login form can be considered as one.
Now this is a example.com domain where there is a login form which interacts with the database.
Now, whenever user wants to enter, a website, user has to enter a username and password, which will
be validated.
From the database and then the access is given.
Then essentially the login form becomes a simple application which runs on a web browser.
Now, generally the question comes is how can you protect a web application from hackers?
Now looking at a simple firewall based scenario.
Where you have a firewall at the perimeter of your server.
But if we talk about traditional based firewall, then firewall can generally check the destination
IP as well as destination port, as well as the source IP.
It can also do rate limiting kind of stuff, but a traditional firewall cannot look into a Http based
packets.
Now, generally, as this is a web application, it is susceptible to lot of web application based hacking
attempts, which a traditional firewall cannot detect.
Now, if we take a look at a firewall versus a web application firewall, then traditionally the attacks,
which are non Http related, you can say something.
Let's say, for example, brute forcing those kind of things can be protected with a firewall.
Now, firewall can protect those kind of attacks.
However, here, if we talk about Http based attack, then a traditional firewall won't be able to protect
it because it only mostly checks for the source IP as well as the destination port.
It has nothing to do with the.
Data related sections.
And this is where the Web application firewall comes into the picture.
Now, VRF or Web Application Firewall typically looks into the Http based vectors to determine if the
packet that has come is related to a hacking related activity or if it is related to the legitimate
use.
Now, generally in modern scenario, web applications are the weakest link, even though if you have
a very strong firewall or a perimeter security, if your web application is not secure, then your.
So what will we compromise?
And most of the compromise attempts that have been happening, even for enterprises, is because of
the Web application related vulnerabilities.
And this is one of the reasons why having a web application firewall and having a strong web application
without much vulnerabilities is one of the critical requirements in today's enterprise level.
Security is concerned.
Now, generally, if we talk about Owasp top ten, then mostly these are the web application attacks
which are being targeted towards most of the web application related to enterprise as well as the SMEs.
Now, let me show you an example on how a web application firewall should look like or is looking like
as well as the.
On how many web application related hacking attempts that actually happens in day to day activities.
So if I do a pwd, I in var log nginx and let me actually do an error less on error log one with grep,
I'll say color learning and this.
All of these are potential
web application related attacks which are being targeted at our servers.
So if you look at this is just a data of few days and there are so many attacks that are being targeted
at the web application that are learning at.
Our servers.
So this is just a attacks that are being targeted towards small enterprises.
But if you talk about bigger enterprises, then you literally have tens of thousands of attacks.
That takes place every single day.
And this is one of the reasons why you should actually protect your.
Web application from such attacks.
And one of the reasons to do is through a web application firewall.
Now we'll be learning on how we can implement a web application firewall on Nginx in the next lecture.
I hope you got the basic scenario on why a valve is important in today's scenario.
I hope this has been informative for you and I'd like to thank you for viewing.