You are probably familiar with classic network firewalls if web applications are an integral part of your organization. And for good reason—they are indispensable in thwarting outside threats that aim to compromise your entire infrastructure. However, as more and more of your critical business processes move online to complex web apps and APIs, security holes have appeared that are invisible to entry-level firewalls. Today’s AI-powered dangers necessitate a new security strategy.
Significant vulnerabilities that could lead to financial fraud, the loss of private information, and even disruption of operations can be exploited if you are unable to see into your bespoke application logic and data flows. Although perimeter firewall protections are still necessary, depending only on them to protect ever-stronger web assets puts you in a dangerous game of chance.
You may lock things down and confidently build out advanced digital capabilities by adding specialized web application firewalls (WAFs), which are designed to assess requests in the entire context of your app environments and augmented by AI for even greater accuracy. In 2024, you will be able to safely deliver the kinds of seamless, customized digital experiences that serve as the cornerstone of enduring customer connections and operational excellence with a layered defense-in-depth strategy that combines network and application-level security.
Traditional firewall defenses’ shortcomings
Likely, your entire network is already protected by a typical firewall (if you operate any internet services). These firewalls use a set of pre-established rules, mostly centered on protocol, port number, IP address ranges, and the fundamental connection state, to filter incoming traffic.
Common firewall rules, for instance, prevent undesired traffic types like online gaming protocols, detect extensive network scans, and lessen distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults. They also restrict external access to private intranet resources.
For traditional network-focused cyber threats, this perimeter defense is effective. However, the application logic, user activities, and data structures particular to custom web apps and APIs are not contextualized in a standard firewall. All it does is scan incoming network packets and try to allow or deny them based on what it finds. This makes it susceptible to the changing strategies used by attackers with AI.
The absence of understanding of program internals might allow significant vulnerabilities to evade conventional firewall defenses:
SQL injection attacks: SQL injection attacks involve inserting malicious code that can be used to steal information, destroy data, or gain remote access.
Broken authentication: Using stolen credentials to grant unauthorized access to the system.
Exposure of sensitive data: As a result of inadequate encryption, backups, or logging.
Cross-site scripting (XSS): Inserting HTML or JavaScript to steal data, infect computers, propagate malware, or deface websites.
Hackers may also target vulnerabilities in identity management, configuration problems, faulty business logic flows, and hazardous object-level access within programs. Attacks driven by AI are capable of taking advantage of these weaknesses with startling speed and accuracy, and your firewall wouldn’t be able to stop them.
These application vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers provide them the ability to take control of client accounts, mine cryptocurrencies on servers illegally, steal confidential corporate information, refuse authorized access, and destroy backend resources. These threats have only increased due to AI.
Despite this, conventional firewalls continue to be the primary line of defense for network perimeters. However, further security measures that are tailored to application dangers and supported by AI’s threat detection skills are crucial for businesses operating online through contemporary web apps.
Why WAFs offer essential protection
Basic network firewalls ignore application layer flaws and logical gaps that web application firewalls fill. Web applications, APIs, microservices, and rich internet applications are the particular targets of WAFs. AI improves their capacity to recognize and counter these dangers even more.
All traffic going to websites will be thoroughly inspected by a WAF employing negative security models that identify suspicious behavior and targeted rulesets. After that, they examine requests for signs of popular exploits and attacks aimed at abusing the functionality and behavior of applications. Analysis aided by AI can spot minute patterns that the human eye would miss otherwise. These could consist of:
– Severe traffic spikes that could be signs of a denial-of-service attack;
– IP addresses that appear suspiciously geolocated;
– Consistent input submissions that fall just short of lockout levels
– Unusual protocols, user agents, or HTTP headers
– Known malicious payloads in POST requests
– Unpredictable attempts to traverse directory structures
– Special characters and patterns that point to cross-site scripting or SQL injection
When new attack patterns emerge, advanced WAFs use global threat information in conjunction with real-time threat detection to quickly identify malicious actors and upcoming exploits. Certain systems can even generate more behavioral guidelines by analyzing your unique application traffic patterns over time, thanks to AI and machine learning algorithms. The flexibility of AI is essential in this dynamic environment.
The WAF minimizes the delay effect by blocking risky requests as traffic flows through while allowing valid users to pass through. This safeguards the application itself, preventing compromising of data and functioning. This can be accomplished by AI-powered WAFs remarkably quickly and accurately, keeping up with the constantly shifting threat landscape.
Virtual patching, behavioral anomaly detection, automatic policy tuning, third-party integration, and positive security models for identifying validated use cases are among the other features that the majority of WAF systems offer.
Establishing a ladder for application security
Numerous crucial company functions, such as partner integration, internal operations management, and customer experience, are supported by web applications. The increased dependence on these application ecosystems increases the susceptibility of businesses to risk due to underlying weaknesses.
By closing significant blind spots, strengthening application security enables businesses to pursue advanced digital transformation and supports important objectives related to:
– Expanding the customer portal to enhance ease and self-service.
– Using microservices and CI/CD pipelines to accelerate the development pace.
– Facilitating real-time data exchanges via open API ecosystems and IoT integrations.
– Using recommendation algorithms and personalized interfaces to increase revenue.
A security ladder effect is produced when network-layer perimeter defenses from conventional firewalls are combined with enhanced security from specialized WAFs. Based on IP addresses, protocols, and volume heuristics, the conventional firewall filters permitted traffic at the network level. This defends against common assaults such as DDoS attacks, malware, and reconnaissance scans.
Subsequently, the application-layer firewall (WAF) assumes control, closely examining the complete request context to detect any efforts to compromise the application’s logic and operation through injection attacks, compromised credentials, atypical workflows, or other devious methods that security teams come across regularly.
When combined, these layers of defense-in-depth safeguard the network as a whole as well as the complex online applications handling an increasing amount of critical business. Then, instead of focusing solely on fixing vulnerabilities, businesses may allocate more development resources toward developing capabilities.
In Essence
The expenses associated with security incidents increase yearly. Additionally, as businesses depend more and more on web apps to handle operations, provide customer service, and generate income, application vulnerabilities pose a significant (and urgent) risk to their operations.
Safeguarding systems with cutting-edge software with AI-powered defenses that are -aware ensures that your security complements your most important strategic goals rather than getting in the way of them.
You may confidently build capabilities supporting goals around improved customer experience, more seamless operations, higher sales growth, and extended partner channels with scalable and secure defenses protecting your websites. Put another way, in our increasingly AI-driven environment, you can concentrate on growing your company with the confidence that you’ve done your share to secure your perimeter and online apps.
