Is your E-commerce store secure? No matter how unlikely you think there might be an attack on your website, your site is vulnerable.
Just because you have a website, you are a potential target. It’s not enough to have strong passwords and SSL certificates to keep you safe.
Your website is an idea that you have put into action, and it is vulnerable to hackers who could steal financial information like passwords and credit/debit card details as well as personally identifiable information.
Therefore, to ensure that your data and your customer data are kept secure, You’ll need a Firewall or Web Application Firewall (WAF) to protect yourself and to perform the best.
A firewall is software designed to monitor/log incoming and outgoing packets that can be placed anywhere, where we require such protection and functionality.
Types of Firewall
- Packet filtering firewall – It is a firewall technique used to manage network access by controlling and monitoring incoming and outgoing packets and allowing them to transfer or block using the source and destination addresses, protocols, and ports of the Internet Protocol (IP).
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Stateful inspection – Stateful inspection tracks IP addresses, ports, applications, and other information about the source and destination of the connection. Before the client inspects the rules of the firewall, it makes decisions about traffic flow based on the information about the connection.
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Application-level gateway (aka proxy firewall) – An application-level gateway (ALG) is a firewall proxy that protects the network. Therefore, it is implemented through a proxy server, which serves as an intermediary between a client and a server.
- Next-generation firewall – A next-generation firewall is a tool for network security that offers functionality beyond a standard firewall. The next-generation firewall offers additional functionality such as application awareness and control, automation intrusion prevention, and threat intelligence provided by the cloud.
- Web application firewall (WAF) – WAF works by filtering and tracking HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet to secure web applications. Generally, it protects web applications from threats such as cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and SQL injection.
Why the WAF is so important
A WAF is pretty much exactly like a gatekeeper that offers an application layer security solution that filters traffic coming to your website and takes appropriate measures to protect against hackers, bots, malware, etc.
WAF works by filtering and tracking HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet to secure web applications. Generally, it protects web applications from threats such as cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and SQL injection.
Ways to protect your eCommerce store by using WAF
WAF effectively provides a different kind of features to protect your e-commerce store. Whether your store’s on a Magento, Prestashop, Shopify, or CS cart doesn’t matter. It gives you a variety of features like:
Filtering requests
It reviews every HTTP request that comes in and goes out. Furthermore, it blocks the requests that appear to be suspicious and notify the administrator.
Malware’s Scanning
Usually, ECommerce stores have the option to upload bills, prescriptions, images, etc. to receive the user’s input. Attackers use malicious files or scripts to exploit the vulnerability.
To detect and stop malware, WAF checks suspicious files and URLs. It also prevents hackers from uploading the shell script and accessing your full website.
Blocking Malicious Bots
Bots will cause enormous damage to your company by scraping content, and spam community forums with intrusive ads and unwanted messages. They drastically affect your SEO rank and sales. Firewall Web Application blocks them.
Reverse proxy
A firewall is implemented between the web application and the Internet by installing a WAF in front of a Web application.
Although a proxy server uses an intermediary to shield the identity of a client computer, a WAF is a form of reverse proxy, shielding the server from disclosure by making clients move through the WAF before entering the server.
WAF protects against DoS & DDoS
A WAF operates by a collection of rules which are also known as policies. Those policies aim to defend against application vulnerabilities by filtering out malicious traffic.
The benefit of a WAF derives in part from the speed and ease at which policy adjustment can be enforced, allowing for quicker response to varying attack vectors; through alteration of WAF rules, rate limiting can be easily introduced during a Dos, DDoS attack.
Conclusion
By maintaining a web application firewall, online businesses can effectively create the trust of their customers and the reputability of their own business.
Also, it can help website owners escape from common web attacks and even advance WAF with proper configurations that are capable of fighting sophisticated web attacks.
As a consequence, your site is safe, as WAF Combat attacks in seconds on the Web. Therefore, through proper planning and execution, WAF can be a powerful tool in your arsenal against any kind of cyber attack.
In case of any help or query, please contact us or raise a ticket.