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webappsec: RE: [WEB SECURITY] Deploying WAFs In Listening-Only M

RE: [WEB SECURITY] Deploying WAFs In Listening-Only Mode - Waste of Money?

From: Ofer Shezaf <ofers_at_nospam>
Date: Sun Jan 13 2008 - 12:35:55 GMT
To: "'Andre Gironda'" <andreg@gmail.com>


Locking doors is also a waste of money, after all any lock can be broken. And still we all lock doors. No WAF will solve all of your web security problems but it would certainly reduce them AND make your site more protected than the next door, which might be just what you need to keep clear.

A good example would be the latest SQL injection bot (WHID 2007-82, http://www.webappsec.org/projects/whid/byid_id_2007-82.shtml). So many web sites were broken into, and by just having a default install of ModSecurity (and I am sure any other WAF), they could prevent the hack.

~ Ofer --- From: Andre Gironda [mailto:andreg@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2008 5:32 PM To: B Snake Cc: websecurity@webappsec.org; webappsec@securityfocus.com Subject: Re: [WEB SECURITY] Deploying WAFs In Listening-Only Mode - Waste of Money? Deploying WAFs at all - Waste of Money? Answer: Not if you just made a check-mark on a PCI-DSS audit On 1/12/08, B Snake <bsnak3@gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems like 90+% of companies that implement WAFs deploy them in
> listening-only mode and don't do any blocking for fear of false positives
> cutting off legitimate user activity.
>
> I'm new to WAFs and this may be a stupid question, but what security value
> does a WAF add if it's not doing any blocking of malicious activity?
>
> -BSnake
>
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