Who can access your AWS resources? What kind of traffic should be allowed to enter your network? In order to ensure that these questions are answered appropriately, organizations need to have a clear understanding of which AWS WAF rules apply.
AWS WAF is an integrated web filter service for protecting websites from attacks and malware. It works by analyzing the requests going in and out of your organization’s sites and services. The service analyzes input from sources like user profiles, browser details, operating system, and more.
This article provides you with insights into why you should care about having an integrated WAF solution, the three most common types of WAF rules you will encounter, how to choose the right WAF rule for your needs, and what risks these rules pose if they aren’t configured or managed properly.
What is AWS WAF?
AWS WAF is an integrated web filter service for protecting websites from attacks and malware. It works by analyzing the requests going in and out of your organization’s sites and services with input from sources like user profiles, browser details, operating system, and more. The service analyzes input from sources like user profiles, browser details, operating system, and more.
The 3 Most Common AWS WAF Rules You Need to Know
This article provides you with insights into why you should care about having an integrated WAF solution, the three most common types of WAF rules you will encounter, how to choose the right WAF rule for your needs, and what risks these rules pose if they aren’t configured or managed properly.
One of the most common AWS WAF rules is known as CORS rules.
CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) is a set of rules that dictate what HTTP requests are allowed to be made to a particular website across different domains. If a particular domain wants to make a request outside their own domain but still have it be approved by their website’s firewall service (i.e., Amazon Web Services), then they must use CORS.
An example would be if you wanted to make a request so that it appears as if it came from your website’s IP address on Facebook without actually doing so (e.g., so that the person doesn’t know it originated on your
Why Is Having a WAF Important?
A WAF is important because it helps to protect your vulnerable resources, such as websites and applications, against attacks. It also helps you to manage the traffic going into your network and ensure that the right people can access your network.
Because of this, a WAF is important in order to provide peace of mind. If you have a WAF set up and configured properly, you know that no one will be able to hack into your valuable data or system resources.
However, if you don’t have a WAF in place, you could be putting yourself at risk for cybercrime attacks and threats on your network.
Different Types of WAF Rules
The most common types of WAF rules are:
- Whitelist: This type of rule allows traffic to enter your network that matches a specific set of criteria.
- Blacklist: This type of rule prevents traffic from entering your network that doesn’t meet a specific set of criteria.
- Whitelisting during the day and blacklisting at night or for certain hours.
A whitelist allows traffic to enter your network only if it matches a set of prerequisites, like being from an IP address that is in the range specified in the rule. A blacklist blocks all traffic from addresses outside a certain range. The other option is to create two separate rules that allow traffic during different hours, such as during the day when people are more likely to authenticate themselves through their browser and when they’re asleep or not using their computer at all (at night).
How to Choose the Right WAF Rule for Your Network
As a security-conscious organization, you will likely have several reasons for choosing AWS WAF. It is important that you understand what types of protections your rules are providing.
Some common types of WAF rules are allowing traffic only from pre-approved IP addresses, allowing traffic to specific ports, and allowing traffic with an SSL certificate. For example, if you need to ensure that users of your website can only access the site when they are connected to Wi-Fi, then you might want to set up a rule that allows traffic from pre-approved IP addresses and only over HTTP. This would allow users with a public IP address to visit your site but also prohibit users who connect through a VPN or Tor connection.
To pinpoint the right rule for your network, you need to consider what type of protection it provides and how it will impact different types of service requests. Some questions you should ask yourself when thinking about setting up these types of rules include: What kind of protection does this rule offer? How will this impact requests coming in? What risks does this rule pose if it isn’t configured or managed properly?
Which WAF Rule Should You Use?
It’s important to consider what type of traffic you want coming into your AWS environment. There are three main types of WAF rules that come in varying levels of granularity and intensity.
- Rule Type: Deny All – This rule will deny all requests with a 404 (Not Found) response code. If this is the rule you choose, make sure that the request coming into your application is HTTP only or it will not be processed.
- Rule Type: Allow All – This rule will allow all incoming requests to enter your network as long as they don’t have a malicious payload attached to them.
- Rule Type: White List – This rule allows only specific IP addresses from a whitelist to enter your network. The whitelist can include IP ranges, address ranges, subnets, and more. For example, if you wanted to allow customers from a particular country within North America access to your site, you could create a white list for just those countries with those countries listed on their respective countries’ white lists for Amazon Web Services.
Conclusion
An AWS WAF rule is a type of security layer that has been set up to protect your AWS infrastructure from traffic that is deemed malicious.
You’ll need to figure out which type of WAF rule you should install and how it should be set up. You should also think about what type of traffic you want to allow and what type of traffic you want to block.
Since the WAF rules are constantly evolving, it’s important that you know what types of rules exist and how they work so you can keep your infrastructure protected.