97 Things Every Application Security Professional Should Know

Chapter 46. WAF and RASP

David Lindner

Web application firewalls (WAFs) and runtime application self-protection (RASP) are both essential tools for protecting web applications from various security threats, but they have different approaches and benefits. These are the key features between a WAF and RASP.

Web Application Firewalls

A WAF is a security solution designed to protect web applications by analyzing incoming traffic and filtering out malicious requests and attacks. It acts as a barrier between the web application and the external world, examining HTTP requests and responses for suspicious patterns or known attack signatures. WAFs are deployed as hardware appliances, virtual appliances, or cloud-based services.

WAF advantages:

Layered defense

WAFs provide an additional layer of security by sitting in front of the web application and intercepting potentially harmful traffic before it reaches the application itself.

Ease of deployment

WAFs are relatively easier to deploy and manage, and they can be set up to provide protection without requiring changes to the application’s source code.

Signature-based protection

WAFs identify and block attacks based on known attack signatures, which makes them effective against many well-known attacks.

Performance

A WAF is typically very efficient with very little noticeable speed implications.

WAF downsides:

Tuning and patching ...