Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Defending your data and applications has become more critical than ever. With businesses storing an ever-increasing volume of user data, it presents a lucrative target for cybercrime. A web application firewall (WAF) is designed to ensure your data and applications are protected by blocking suspicious activity, providing comprehensive security for critical applications.

What is a Web Application Firewall?

A Web Application Firewall (WAF) is designed to protect your data from hackers as they try to exploit weaknesses in your application code.

These targeted attacks are disguised as genuine requests made to forms on your site - to a traditional firewall or Intrusion Detection System/Intrusion Prevention System they will appear authentic and so allow them to proceed; making them either unable to guard against these attacks or unable to offer comprehensive protection.

Once these requests get through to your application, the hacker can send a special request through your website form that will in turn release sensitive data stored on your database.

WAFs are designed to proactively protect the application layer against attempted fraud or data theft; blocking any suspicious activity. Inspecting every web request for cross-site scripting, SQL injection, path traversal and 400+ other types of attack, this protective layer aims to keep your data secure.

Which WAF is right for you?

Dedicated WAF

Physical hardware in UKFast Data Centres
Configured with UKFast Security experts
Testing for 2-4 weeks before deployment
UKFast Security Team maintain updates
Bespoke configuration

WAF on DDoSX

Global network-based
Self-managed in MyUKFast
Deploys instantly
Best practice rulesets and whitelisting
Quick and easy to update

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With a UKFast WAF you'll benefit from:

Safeguard against application layer (layer 7) attacks
Safeguard from all inbound and outbound traffic, for all web applications, by examining traffic from both directions to ensure that your database doesn't release any information that it shouldn't
Inbound traffic monitoring and report production, illustrating the level of suspicious traffic targeting your site

Reduced financial and reputational risk, ensuring that your business offers the highest level of security for your clients
A specialised team of security experts overseeing your WAF and continually identifying new rules to better protect your application
24/7/365 UK-based support from a dedicated team of experts

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Why UKFast?

Ultra-Secure

Not only does your solution sit behind a Cisco ASA firewall as standard, our data centres are ISO 27001 and ISO 27018 certified, PCI-compliant and secured to UK government IL4 standards, which ensures your solution is protected by exceptional levels of security at all times.

Expert Support

You'll soon see our expert support engineers as an extension of your team. Supporting Windows, Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian and RedHat, our team are available 24/7/365 to answer questions or help resolve any issues, plus your call will be answered within 3 rings, guaranteed.

Always Available

With UKFast we guarantee 100% network uptime, ensuring your business is always online. And with Total Cover™ you can combine extras such as 15min support response,1 hour hardware replacement and proactive server monitoring to give you absolute peace of mind.

Technical Overview

Sitting directly on the application layer your WAF examines every HTTP request/conversation that comes through to your database server - and applies a set of bespoke rules set to filter out illegitimate traffic.

Custom rule sets are managed by security experts and exist for a wide range of applications. New rules can continually be applied to keep pace with new and emerging threats. Our WAF also proactively observes your genuine traffic, creating bespoke rules to ensure that any legitimate traffic is not blocked.

With no changes to your existing set up and an additional layer or protection, WAFs ensure that your site provides the upmost protection for your clients and also allows you to comply with PCI 6.6.

Our high performance WAF solution is designed to safeguard against a number of vulnerabilities, including:

Cross-site scripting (XSS)
Injection flaws (SQL injection)
Malicious file execution
Insecure direct object reference
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)
OS command injections
Information leakage
Improper error handling
Application denial of service
Broken authentication
Session management
Insecure cryptographic storage
Insecure communications
Failure to restrict URL access

"UKFast's security accreditations add serious weight to our proposals, and help us win business."