Get the Free Web Application Firewall (WAF) and Integration Into Free Load Balancer Now
Get Free Web Application Firewall (free WAF) Software and protect your servers from data breach and hacker attacks
How the Free Web Application Firewall by Kemp LoadMaster works?
Free LoadMaster includes a Web Application Firewall (WAF) engine that allows an administrator to deploy custom rules to protect web assets on servers behind the load balancer. An administrator may craft custom rules or use any ModSecurity compatible rule set to apply the security levels required. The web application firewall may be operated where security exceptions are logged but no traffic is blocked.
Benefits of Free Web Application Firewall
The web application firewall (WAF) included with the Progress Free Load Balancer solution is running the same code as the full commercial edition of LoadMaster. So, the WAF in the free edition has all the same security features as the commercial edition, with the following caveat.
You can't subscribe to the commercial WAF ruleset with the free version. This doesn't mean that you can't create all the rules you need. You can, but you must create them manually or source them from trusted repositories. Also, without the automatic updates included with the WAF ruleset subscription that is part of a commercial LoadMaster license and support agreement, you will need to update your WAF rules manually to handle new threats.
The WAF provides protection against the following types of attacks:
Cookie Tampering
A WAF monitors and verifies cookie values by checking their integrity, format and expected parameters. It can identify when something has maliciously altered a cookie and block requests with tampered session tokens or authentication cookies, preventing unauthorized access or privilege escalation.
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
WAFs protect against CSRF by verifying request origins, checking for valid CSRF tokens and analyzing referrer headers to confirm requests come from trusted sources. They can block suspicious cross-origin requests attempting to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated users.
Injection Attacks
A WAF examines incoming requests for malicious code patterns often used in SQL, NoSQL, LDAP and command injection attacks. It can detect and block requests with suspicious query structures or code injection attempts before they reach an application.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
WAFs detect XSS attacks by examining request parameters, headers and payloads for malicious JavaScript code, HTML tags and script injection patterns. They can sanitize or block requests with suspicious script elements that could run in users' browsers to steal data or hijack sessions.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
A WAF can monitor outbound responses for sensitive data patterns such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, or confidential information using pattern matching and regular expressions. It can block or redact responses containing sensitive data that should not leave the application environment.
Buffer Overflow Protection
WAFs defend against buffer overflow attacks by restricting request sizes, monitoring for excessive input lengths and identifying abnormal data patterns that could exploit memory vulnerabilities. They set size limits on headers, parameters and request bodies to prevent memory corruption attacks.
Access Control
A WAF enforces access policies by verifying user authentication, checking authorization levels and applying IP allowlisting or blocklisting. It can limit access to specific application resources based on user roles, geographic location, or other predefined security rules.
Security Misconfiguration
WAFs help prevent security misconfigurations by providing centralized security controls, hiding server information in response headers and blocking requests that try to exploit common configuration vulnerabilities like exposed administrative interfaces or debug modes.
Denial of Service Protection
A WAF protects against DoS attacks by using rate limiting, connection throttling and traffic analysis to spot and block excessive requests from a single source. It can detect unusual traffic patterns and automatically block or challenge suspicious traffic to an application.
Botnet Attack Preventions
WAFs detect botnet traffic using behavioral analysis, reputation filtering and challenge-response mechanisms like CAPTCHA. They can recognize coordinated attacks from multiple IP addresses, spot non-human traffic patterns and block automated bot requests while allowing legitimate user traffic.
Web-Based Malware Protection
A WAF scans incoming file uploads and web content for known malware signatures, suspicious file types and malicious code patterns. It can block or quarantine files containing viruses, trojans, or other malware before the web application processes them and it can also monitor outbound traffic to prevent infected content from reaching users.
Zero-Day Threats
WAFs defend against zero-day threats by analyzing behavior, detecting anomalies and employing heuristic scanning to identify suspicious activity patterns even without known signatures. They can spot unusual request patterns, abnormal application behaviors and new attack techniques that don't match existing threat databases, offering proactive protection against previously unknown vulnerabilities.
Multi-Cloud WAF Deployment
As mentioned earlier, the WAF in the Progress Free Load Balancer is the same software as in the commercial editions, with some restrictions on throughput and commercial use. Keep in mind that a Free Load Balancer platform can be upgraded to a commercial LoadMaster platform by purchasing and applying a commercial license, without needing to reinstall or reconfigure everything from scratch. You don't have to change to a commercial license. You can continue using the free edition indefinitely if it meets your requirements.
Like the commercial editions, the Free Web Application Firewall integrates with leading cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (via a virtual machine deployment), providing consistent security policies and management across multi-cloud environments.
The WAF generates JSON and Common Event Format (CEF) logs that are easily processed by third-party Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems like Azure Sentinel or others, enhancing visibility into application access patterns and threat detection.
The Free Web Application Firewall in the Free Load Balancer WAF offers consistent advanced features and an easy-to-use management interface across all deployment platforms, enabling organizations to adopt unified web application security strategies without the complexity of platform-specific tools, while supporting hybrid deployments that include on-premises and multiple cloud environments.