A web application firewall (WAF) is needed to protect web applications and APIs from cyber threats like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other malicious attacks. With cyberattacks on web applications rising, businesses must use strong application security and WAFs to protect their online assets. This article will discuss the best WAFs available in 2023 and their essential services and advantages to help you choose the right one for your organization.

What Is a Web Application Firewall?

A web application firewall, or WAF, filters and keeps an eye on HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) traffic between a web application and the Internet. This helps protect web applications. It usually keeps attacks like cross-site forgery, cross-site scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and SQL injection from getting into web applications.

A WAF is a defense at the protocol layer 7 level in the OSI model. It is not meant to protect against all types of attacks. This way of stopping an invasion is usually part of a set of tools that work together to make a strong defense against many different kinds of attacks.

When a WAF is put in front of a web application, it acts as a barrier between the application and the Internet. A proxy server hides the identity of a client machine by working as a middleman. A WAF, on the other hand, is a type of reverse proxy that hides the server by making clients go through it first.

A WAF works by following a set of rules, which are sometimes called policies. These policies protect the application from flaws by filtering out bad traffic. A WAF's value comes partly from how quickly and easily policy changes can be made. This lets the WAF respond faster to different types of attacks. By changing WAF policies, rate limiting can be done quickly during a DDoS attack.

What Is the Difference Between WAF and Firewall?

A Web Application Firewall (WAF) protects web applications by looking for HTTPS traffic. This differs from a standard firewall, which blocks traffic between the inside and outside of a network.

A WAF sits between outside users and web applications and looks at all HTTPS traffic. Then, it looks for malicious requests and blocks them before they reach users or web apps. So, WAFs protect business-critical web applications and servers from zero-day threats and attacks that target the application layer. This is becoming more important as businesses take on more digital projects, which can leave the web application and API protection (WAAP) open to attacks.

A firewall prevents people from getting into a secure local-area network without permission. This keeps attacks from happening. Its main goal is to divide a safe zone from a less secure site and control how people talk between the two. Without it, any computer with a public Internet Protocol (IP) address could be hacked from outside the network.

Best Web Application Firewalls

A web application firewall (WAF) is an application security tool that monitors and controls the traffic that goes in and out of a web application to prevent web-based attacks.

WAFs can be set up as hardware devices, software programs, or services that run in the cloud. They are made to protect web applications by filtering incoming traffic and blocking malicious requests while letting legitimate traffic through. Some of the best web application firewalls software include:

1. Indusface

Indusface is a leading application security SaaS company. It protects critical web, mobile, and API applications for more than 5,000 customers all over the world with its award-winning, fully managed WAAP platform. This platform integrates a web application scanner, firewall, DDoS mitigation, BOT mitigation, a content delivery network (CDN), and a threat intelligence engine.

Indusface's Approach to Web Application Firewall Management

The primary concern with any WAF for most security teams is false positives. When it comes to testing for false positives, most vendors pass the responsibility or burden to their customers. This consistently occurs whenever vendors patch zero-day vulnerabilities.

With the scarcity of talent in the security research space, this is extremely challenging for internal teams. Complicating this is the lack of prioritization on the development cycles where new feature development almost always takes precedence over patching vulnerabilities on the code.

With bundled managed services, the security researchers at Indusface work as an extension of the customers' SOC/development team to ensure there are no false positives. AppTrana is possibly the only WAF that explicitly mentions "Zero False Positives Guaranteed."

Indusface's Risk Based Protection and Custom Rule Deployment

Customers have the ability to use the embedded scanner to request automated application scans and penetration testing. After getting a consolidated vulnerability report, customers leverage the managed services team to patch these vulnerabilities in real-time using virtual patches or also called as custom rules.

The embedded scanner could also be used to run scans daily or weekly to look for new vulnerabilities. Although the core rules are comparable to most of their rivals, they stand out from the rest of the pack as clients have the capability to deploy unlimited custom rules. Each of these custom rules is written by Indusface security experts based on application needs and again extensively tested by their managed services team to eliminate any false positives.

They provide customers with almost unrestricted access to custom rules as part of their premium plan. This has been an enormously successful endeavor, with the typical customer implementing 48 custom rules as per their recent report published in January 2023.

Protection From DDoS and Bot Attacks

Another thing that sets them apart from the competition is that all their standard plans come with protection against DDoS and bot attacks. Concerning DDoS in particular, they were the first to implement what we now refer to as "behavioral DDoS Protection." It is where the application uses AI to study user behavior across various parameters to recommend and also apply custom rate limits.

Indusface's Systematic Approach to Ensuring Application Availability

In this instance, the system uses sophisticated artificial intelligence models to automatically apply rate limits at a URI, IP, session/host, and geo to ensure application availability of 99.99% by fending off sophisticated DDoS attacks.

In the most recent fiscal quarter, they found that the system-defined URI-specific rate limits were about to put an end to 147 million DDoS attacks with zero instances of false positives.

Finally, API protection is included as part of the WAF and uses the same "risk based protection" model as the rest of the WAF. This means that their customers can scan and perform pen testing on APIs, which can then be protected against vulnerabilities, DDoS attacks, and bot attacks.

Key Services

• Indusface offers a web application firewall service to protect web applications against cyber threats such as cross-site scripting and SQL injection.

• They also offer services to find security holes and fix them through vulnerability management.

• There is also application security testing to find security holes and wrong configurations in web applications.

Advantages:

• Indusface has a complete security solution for web applications that can help organizations protect their systems and data from a wide range of threats.

• AppTrana WAF helps teams in consolidating solutions for application scanning, application protection, DDoS & Bot protection, API security and secure CDN

• The onboarding is as simple as doing a DNS change

• Day zero protection with zero down-time is guaranteed

• Their monitoring and help are available 24/7, with a zero false positive guarantee and security problems can be dealt with quickly

2. Akamai Kona Site Defender

The web application security solution Akamai Kona Site Defender is a Cloud-based service that defends against a wide variety of web application-specific assaults. It employs signature-based and rule-based detection to search for and block malicious traffic.

Akamai, the industry leader in preventing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, offers a Cloud service called Site Defender that combines full DDoS protection with its web application firewall. If you can get both of these services from a single security product, you won't need to send your traffic to two companies before it can reach your web server. This is because you'll already have everything you need.

Akamai also has a number of web application firewall (WAF) services that protect against SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other types of cyber attacks. The company's WAF services use AI and machine learning to monitor and analyze web traffic constantly. This lets the company find and stop potential threats in real-time.

In addition to security services, Akamai also offers a number of services to improve the speed of websites and applications. These services include image compression, minification, and other performance optimization techniques that can help reduce page load times and improve the user experience.

Key Services

• Web Application Firewall

• DDoS Mitigation

• Bot Management

• Application Security Testing

Advantages

• Cloud security and API protection

• Real-time traffic analytics and reporting

• Advanced threat intelligence

• Scalable deployment options

• Comprehensive security solutions and services

• High availability and performance

3. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Barracuda is a WAF company and a Cloud-based system that scans traffic coming in and going out of a web server. This system protects against attacks and keeps data from being stolen, so it is both a web application firewall (WAF) and a data loss prevention (DLP) service. The service is also available as a physical network device or as a virtual appliance.

The WAF sends all traffic to a web server, both coming in and going out. It can find and stop attacks based on traffic, malware, and attacks on the page. The service uses both blacklisting and whitelisting. Blacklisting keeps hackers out, and whitelisting lets real users in only from specific devices.

One of the best things about Barracuda WAF is that it can give you information about threats in real-time. The service constantly checks and analyzes web traffic with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning. This allows it to find and deal with potential threats in real-time.

Barracuda WAF also gives you options for setting up. Depending on your organization's needs, it can be set up as a reverse proxy, a pass-through proxy, or an API gateway.

Key Services

• Web Application Firewall

• DDoS Mitigation

• SSL Inspection

• Bot Management

• Vulnerability Management

Advantages

• Cost-effective Cloud-based deployment

• Threat detection and prevention

• Compliance and regulatory adherence

• Flexible protection

• Easy management and configuration

• Integration with other security solutions

• Multi-layered security approach

4. Fortinet FortiWeb

The FortiWeb WAF from Fortinet can be purchased as a software appliance, a VM-based system, or a SaaS solution. The WAF security software has additional deployment options, including running in a containerized environment or being hosted in a private Cloud.

Fortinet FortiWeb is a web application firewall that protects users and their websites from a wide range of threats that can be found on the internet. Businesses that are looking for a WAF solution that is both powerful and flexible will find that this product is an excellent option to consider. Its many features, including bot management, DDoS protection, and API security, make it a perfect choice.

Fortinet's solutions are also very flexible to meet an organization's changing needs. The company's FortiGate platform can be used in different ways, such as a standalone firewall, a VPN gateway, or a security platform for Cloud-based services.

Key Services

• Web Application Firewall

• DDoS Mitigation

• Bot Management

• Vulnerability Management

• Compliance Management

Advantages

• Advanced protection against a wide range of cyber threats

• Detects and remediates security vulnerabilities

• Customizable solution

• On-premise deployment options

• Provides 24/7 monitoring and support

• Integration with other Fortinet security products for a comprehensive security solution

5. Cloudflare WAF

Cloudflare WAF is a web application firewall run in the Cloud and protects against a wide range of cyber threats. It uses algorithms that learn on their own and a rules engine to find and block malicious traffic. It's easy to set up and run, which makes it an excellent choice for small and medium-sized businesses.

Cloudflare has become very good at protecting web hosts from DDoS attacks, and they add a web application firewall to their protection. A lot of people use this online service. Their servers handle 2.9 million requests from their many customers every second.

Cloudflare's security services are made to go against a wide range of cyber threats, such as DDoS attacks, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other web-based attacks. The company's DDoS protection uses cutting-edge technologies to find and stop large-scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from taking over a website or web-based application. Cloudflare's web application firewall (WAF) protects you from web-based threats by keeping an eye on malicious traffic and blocking it.

Key Services

• Web Application Firewall

• DDoS Mitigation

• Content Delivery Network (CDN)

• Bot Management

• SSL/TLS encryption

Advantages

• Advanced protection against a wide range of cyber threats

• Blocks malicious bots and scrapers

• Cloud-based deployment for easy and flexible management

• Available with a free and paid plan, with different features on both.

A web application firewall (WAF) is vital for keeping web-based applications safe from attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, etc. In 2023, the best web application firewalls are those with advanced features like real-time threat detection, automatic blocking of malicious traffic, and support for Cloud and on-premises deployments.

When choosing a WAF, it's also essential to consider how easy it is to use and how detailed the reports can be. Overall, the best WAFs can protect organizations in many ways and are easy for organizations to employ.