AWS WAF: What It Is And How To Get Started

Web application firewalls (WAFs) protect web applications or APIs against security breaches by blocking unwanted requests that could be malicious. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of what a WAF is and how to get started with AWS WAF.

What is AWS WAF?

AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect your web applications from common web exploits that could affect application availability, compromise security, or consume excessive resources. AWS WAF gives you control over which traffic to allow or block to your web applications by defining customizable web security rules. You can use AWS WAF to create rules that block SQL injection attempts and other exploit attempts that target vulnerabilities in your web applications. Additionally, AWS WAF automatically updates its rule set to include the latest protections against new and evolving attacks.

How Does AWS WAF Work?

AWS WAF gives you control over which traffic to allow or block to your web applications by defining customizable security rules. When AWS WAF is deployed in front of your web application, it monitors and filters incoming traffic based on the rules you define. 

AWS WAF includes a comprehensive set of predefined rules that you can configure to fit the specific needs of your website or application, and you can also create custom rules as needed. By default, AWS WAF allows all traffic through, but you can choose to block all traffic except for what you explicitly allow if desired. Whichever approach you take, configuring AWS WAF is quick and easy with no changes required to your existing code or infrastructure.

AWS WAF offers two deployment models: blocking mode and monitoring mode. In blocking mode, AWS WAF drops any requests that violate your security rules while in monitoring mode it allows the requests through but alerts you so that you can take action if needed. You can switch between modes at any time with no interruptions to your website or application. 

To get started using AWS WAF, simply create an Amazon CloudFront distribution and specify the applicable AWS WAF WebACL in the distribution’s settings. For more information on how to set up and use AWS WAF, visit the Amazon

AWS WAF Components

AWS WAF gives you control over which traffic to allow or block to your web applications by defining customizable security rules.

AWS WAF includes the following components:

-Web ACLs: Web ACLs define the set of rules that AWS WAF uses to inspect incoming web requests and take action on them based on the conditions that you specify, such as blocking requests from a particular IP address or allowing requests only from certain referrers. 

-Rules: Each rule in a Web ACL specifies a condition for matched web requests and an optional action to take on those requests. For example, you could create a rule that blocks all requests except those from known good IP addresses. 

-Conditions: Conditions are used by rules to identify the types of web requests that you want AWS WAF to inspect. For example, you can create a condition based on the values in an HTTP header or query string parameter. 

-Actions: Actions specify what AWS WAF should do when it finds a match in a request for a rule with a corresponding condition. For example, you can configure AWS WAF to block, allow, or count matching requests.

How to Get Started with AWS WAF

If you’re looking to get started with AWS WAF, there are a few things you’ll need to do first. First, you’ll need to create an AWS account and sign up for the WAF service. Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to create a WAF rule. To do this, you’ll need to specify the following:

– The name of the rule

– The AWS resources that the rule applies to

– The conditions that trigger the rule

– The action that the rule takes (e.g. block, allow, or count)

Once you’ve created your rule, it will be automatically deployed and will begin protecting your resources from web attacks.

We know that securing AWS environments is crucial – which is why we’re partners with AWS in the Well-Architected Program. Let our experts walk you through how they can help you, and we’ll also share all of our tricks! Contact us today.

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