A Web Application Firewall (WAF) serves as a critical defense mechanism for web applications, tasked with filtering and monitoring HTTP and HTTPS traffic between the application and the Internet. Its primary objective is to shield web applications from various cyber threats, including cross-site forgery, cross-site scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and SQL injection.
A WAF is your first line of defense, it control inbound and outbound traffic acting as a checkpoint. It operates on predefined rules, often called policies. These rules help filter our malicious content. The strength of a WAF is the agile response, during an attack it can rapidly modify its policies in order to stop specific attacks like Denial of Service (DoS) attacks
Web Application Firewall weaknesses
A WAF is not designed to protect your website from all types of attacks and vulnerabilities. WAF can help stop known attacks in their tracks but will not resolve vulnerabilities and might not protect against newly discovered threats. It is important do use a WAF in tandem with other security measures such as vulnerability scanners. Vulnscanner AI offers a solution to this issue by scanning and analyzing your website code in search for vulnerabilities that need patching.
How do I install a Web Application Firewall
The web application firewall that we recommend is Wordfence. Installing wordfence is very simple and free. Just log into your website dashboard, click on Plugins –> Add new and search for Wordfence. Once you find it, click on Install and than Activate.
Conclusion
n this article we took a look at what a Web Application Firewall is, we saw how it could be useful, but also what are its weaknesses. It is important to use a WAF in tandem with other security tools, such as vulnerability scanners. Vulnscanner AI offers the perfect solution to this issue by scanning your website and reporting vulnerabilities so that you can fix them.