On Jan 12, 2008 3:55 PM, B Snake <bsnak3@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems like 90+% of companies that implement WAFs deploy them in
listening-only mode and don't do any blocking for fear of false positives
cutting off legitimate user activity.
I'm new to WAFs and this may be a stupid question, but what security value
does a WAF add if it's not doing any blocking of malicious activity?
I have found that most people talk about blocking when they are
discussing web application firewalls, in spite of this type of
deployment being just one of the possible use cases. This is very
peculiar because, at the network level, so many people are deploying
intrusion detection systems (which do not block) yet the question of
usefulness is not being asked all the time. This might be because
intrusion detection is a mature technology and everyone is comfortable
(understands) what their role is, whereas web application firewalls
still have a way to go toward wide recognition.
Whether to block or not is a matter of taste. I, for example, prefer
to focus on detection. This is because I feel that, at the very basic
level, the most important thing a web application firewall (or any
other security device) can give me is the ability to detect problems,
telling me when I am being attacked. In other words, I want
visibility. I want to know what is going on. From there I can decide
to block if that's what I want to do.
Ask yourself this: if there is a vulnerability in your web application
and it's being exploited and you do not have a web application
firewall actively looking at the traffic to warn you about it, how are
you going to detect you are being attacked? For how long is the attack
going to continue until some external signs start giving you clues
that something is not right?
-BSnake
--
Ivan Ristic
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