Points to Consider when selecting an Application Firewall

Application firewalls have, for a long, served as one of the enterprise’s important security technologies. But even as hackers have gotten sharper at avoiding traditional security, application firewalls have maintained their value. If your enterprise is considering a web application firewall for the first time or looking to replace an existing one, ensure you consider the following.

WAF offering comprehensive threat protection

Always select a WAF which offers a comprehensive threat protection features protecting your web applications against all known threats. It must be capable of detecting almost all vulnerabilities from different applications, third-party sources, server, among others and patch threats until fixed by experts.

Level of customization

No two businesses are alike and based on market conditions, businesses have to adapt and change their strategies. As such, the vulnerabilities, risk appetite, threats, and security needs would vary based on business requirements. A business will require customized WAF to fulfill individual business needs.

Look for an application firewall which can be customized based on business requirement and yet offer comprehensive features. The WAF should offer unlimited custom rules, SSL support for all domains, country-specific blacklist/whitelist, etc.

Scalability of WAF

Your enterprise is bound to grow along with your clientele. As such, your enterprise’s web application will increase and get higher volumes of traffic. Sometimes, when an enterprise increases its marketing or promotional activities, there may be sudden traffic spikes because of these activities. Whatever may be the case, the application firewall should be able to protect your enterprise’s application irrespective of the traffic volumes. Therefore, scalability, multitenancy, and scalability costs are important considerations as these will impact the performance, availability, and speed of your enterprise’s web application.

Ease of deployment

Your enterprise’s application should not crash when deploying the application firewall. Normally application firewalls available on cloud platforms are flexible and easy to deploy without causing any downtimes.

Affordability

With the availability of various WAFs from different providers, the cost of application firewalls has become competitive. It is always a good practice to research market costs before deep diving into a contract with the provider.

However, selecting an application firewall only on cost is not advisable as the product features are very likely to suffer. Therefore, this industry’s best practice is judging based on a combination of price, product features, and quality. As there is a saying that you get what you pay for.

Still undecided? Why don’t you speak to a WAF expert at StrongBox IT. Let’s decide together.