Why Your Office Needs Web Application Firewall Solutions
Introduction
Public office digital assets, including websites, are primary targets in an increasingly complex threat landscape. Proof of the matter is that Philippine government sites have weathered about 14.1 million threats in 2024, showing that cyberattacks are not stopping anytime soon and that, fortunately, agencies and departments are equipped to detect and foil these threats.
Using web application firewall (WAF) solutions is one way to fortify a public office's cybersecurity defenses, particularly when securing its website. If your agency has yet to integrate these solutions, now is the time to do so. It is essential to take action now before your site experiences a surge in traffic that might render it inaccessible and hamper essential online transactions with the public.
If you need more convincing, read this article by InfoBahn Communications, Inc., and discover the advantages of installing a web application firewall today.
What Is the Difference Between a Firewall and a WAF?
A traditional firewall is akin to a gatekeeper. It is designed to protect your network by filtering out malicious elements that might affect your systems and compromise your database. Firewalls inspect packets, identify threats, and grant or deny incoming and outgoing traffic passage. Such firewalls are usually deployed within your network perimeter or a corporate network to allow segmentation.
Meanwhile, web application firewall solutions, or simply WAF, are a specific type of firewall. They protect your web applications, including your website, against attempted exploits. WAF solutions focus on inspecting HTTPS requests and checking malicious SQL injections in application programming interfaces (APIs), so they are usually deployed as front-facing protection for web apps and applied both on-premises and in the cloud.
Reasons Your Office Needs Web Application Firewall (WAF) Solutions
If your office communicates or transacts with constituents through web applications, the appropriate firewall or WAF solutions will ensure your website remains operational despite cyber attack attempts. WAFs help defend your site, save you the hassle of downtimes, and protect your reputation. In detail, these solutions allow your agency the following capabilities:
To Defend Against Forgery Attacks
Web application firewalls help defend your website against cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks. At the individual level, these attacks may mislead you into using your credentials to complete an unauthorized action, such as transferring money or changing passwords. At the administrative level, such threats can infiltrate your server and take complete control over your website.
To defend your site against CSRF, your service provider may use anti-CSRF tokens, precisely a cookie-to-header token, to mitigate threats. These tokens are created using custom rules via a web application firewall solution.
To Block Unauthorized Data Access
A reliable WAF solution will detect malicious SQL injections, an attack threat actors use to access databases and steal or destroy information. Often, the attacker will spoof an identity, make themselves an administrator, modify data, or retrieve information using a well-thought-out SQL command execution. Sometimes, the perpetrators may distract database administrators with a DDoS attack so that you would not notice they are already accessing sensitive information.
A web application firewall addresses these layered attacks by detecting SQL injections and deploying a separate solution against other types of web application threats.
To Prevent Website Outages
Web application firewall solutions implement protective measures against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. These attacks aim to overwhelm the target website by flooding it with internet traffic and rendering it inaccessible (as would have happened with the Philippine Congress website in 2024 if they did not have a reliable IT team on board). The right WAF will mitigate such threats by acting as a reverse proxy and protecting your server from harmful traffic. Custom rules to filter said traffic also increase the chance of preventing DDoS attacks from succeeding.
If such threats are mitigated, you will not have to explain to the public why your agency website is not operational. More importantly, it will help your IT team focus on developing and improving your processes.
To Stop Online Impersonators
A solid WAF security will protect your web applications from malicious actors who pose as someone else. When attackers attempt to execute impersonations through cross-site request forgery and SQL-injecting attacks, a reliable web application firewall detects such methods, filtering out unusual, dubious elements before they damage or shut down your website.
Aside from stopping online impersonators through web application firewalls, beefing up your cybersecurity with a well-structured access control management system can make it challenging for actors to break through your digital assets.
To Avoid Transaction Interruptions
Many government websites in the Philippines are used for essential transactions. Your constituents complete activities such as checking their social security status, booking a passport application appointment, securing an NBI certificate, and downloading tax-related documents via government web applications. Hackers and attackers would want to hamper these processes, inconveniencing both your agency and the people you serve.
Fortunately, the right WAF solutions can mitigate or prevent attacks from interrupting your website. When these solutions are combined with other firewall types, you will be assured of smooth, issue-free operations on your website and your on-prem and cloud networks.
To Protect Your Reputation
Website downtimes will make your users complain, especially if they are in the middle of completing an online transaction. As these inconveniences pile up, they may affect your reputation and erode public trust. Web application firewalls can help prevent this downgrade by consistently mitigating website threats.
The fewer issues your users experience with your website, the less likely they will feel dissatisfied with your service. By offering an optimal user experience, you build a good reputation among your constituents, ultimately resulting in your office gaining public trust and respect.
Conclusion
The Philippines is no stranger to cyber threats, especially attacks that affect government websites. As such, it is paramount that your public office uses WAF solutions to beef up its cybersecurity components. With solid web application firewalls, your agency can defend against forgery attacks, unauthorized data access, site outages, online impersonations, and transaction interruptions. Ultimately, these protective measures will help your agency build a positive reputation among your constituents.
Our experts from InfoBahn are always ready to help if you need support in protecting your agency website. Contact us today to learn more about our web application firewall solutions!