MGT’s Web Application Firewall: Magento WAF for Enhanced Security

• What is Magento Web Application Firewall (WAF)?

• Understanding Magento Network Layers

• Benefits of Using Magento Web Application Firewall (WAF)

• MGT's Web Application Firewall: How It Operates?

• 11 Security Features of MGT Web Application Firewall (WAF)

• Why Use MGT’s Web Application Firewall for Magento?

• FAQs

• Summary

Key Takeaways

• Explore how Magento's Web Application Firewall protects your store against external threats, offers customized security rules, and ensures continuous updates to counter evolving risks.

• Understand the role of different network layers within Magento, with the WAF operating at the application layer, providing an added Magento security shield.

• Explore security measures and compliance with WAF to provide real-time visibility, automatic updates, and backend access control, ensuring a secure and compliant store.

• Discover WAF’s maintenance and support benefits, effortless deployment, and site uptime maintenance, ensuring a reliable online store.

• Optimize SEO and Security to enhance SEO rankings, meet PCI DSS standards, and secure your store from threats with MGT's Web Application Firewall.

What is Magento Web Application Firewall (WAF)?

The Magento Web Application Firewall, commonly called WAF, is a software application supported by hardware components. Its primary function is to oversee and monitor network traffic. The Magento firewall examines this flowing data, ensuring adherence to a predefined set of rules. It acts as a checkpoint, verifying the integrity of the data and preventing malicious content from passing through.

One of the core objectives of the Magento firewall is to safeguard the user's Magento store against external threats. For instance, if a hacker attempts to manipulate the browser by generating a request with malicious intent, Magento firewall will create an SQL injection before executing the malicious code to stop this illegal access. Magento firewall is continuously updated to promptly counter both established and emerging threats at the application layer.

Understanding Magento Network Layers

To understand the role of the Magento firewall, it's essential to grasp the concept of network layers. These layers divide the data flow within a network into distinct segments, with each layer supporting the functions of the subsequent layer.

WAF is at the 7th layer within the OSI model, specifically in the application layer. Its primary responsibility is to monitor HTTP requests, particularly those that exhibit patterns of well-known cyberattacks. Here's an overview of these network layers:

1. Physical Layer: This layer deals with the raw bitstream transmitted over the physical medium.

2. Data Link Layer: Responsible for defining the data format on the network.

3. Network Layer: Decides the physical path that data will take.

4. Transport Layer: Handles data transmission through protocols like TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) or UDP (User Datagram Protocol).

5. Session Layer: Manages and maintains connections, controlling ports and sessions.

6. Presentation Layer: Ensures data is in a usable format and may also include data encryption.

7. Application Layer: The human-computer interaction layer, where applications access network services. The Magento firewall operates at this layer, providing an additional layer of security.

Benefits of Using Magento Web Application Firewall (WAF)

1. Enhanced Security

• Protection from External Threats: Magento's Web Application Firewall (WAF) effectively prevents security breaches on the platform. Continuous research and updates improve the detection and mitigation of evolving software threats, improving the security of your Magento website.

• Customized Security Rules: Users can tailor the firewall by adding personalized rules. It includes instant hacker blocking, virtual Magento site patching, hardening, reputation protection, and mitigation of and protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

2. Improved Performance

• Content Delivery Network (CDN): Magento WAF harnesses a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to amplify website speed and global availability, ensuring swift access for users worldwide.

• Secure Data Centers: Secure data centers efficiently manage customer, visitor, and search engine data, protecting data regulation and maintaining performance.

• Migrational Efficiency: When transitioning to Magento from other platforms, noticeable improvements in operational Magento speed become evident. It is due to WAF delivering a smoother user experience.

• Optimizing Features: It offers features like Intelligent caching, GZIP compression, and support for fast HTTP/2 protocol. It also minimizes Magento server loading times and cooperates with other CDNs to optimize platform performance.

3. Security Measures and Compliance

• Default Security Guidelines: Magento includes a default web application firewall policy. It offers a set of security guidelines to safeguard Adobe Commerce website applications. These guidelines protect against various attacks, including injection attacks, Linux attacks, malicious inputs, data exfiltration, HTTP protocol violations, cross-site scripting, and other security threats.

• PCI DSS Compliance: Magento WAF ensures compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). This standard guarantees the safety of all transactions on Adobe Commerce storefronts, further establishing the store's legitimacy.

• Real-Time Visibility: The firewall provides near real-time metrics, capturing raw requests with sensitive data such as geolocations, IP addresses, URIs (uniform resource identifiers), and referrers.

• Automatic Updates: Web application firewall updates are automatically applied to the Magento store, keeping it current with the latest security measures.

• Backend Access Control: Access to the Magento backend can be restricted to whitelisted IP addresses, enhancing security. Magento store owners can manage blocked IPs, countries, and bots through the Magento store's backend.

4. Maintenance and Support

• Proactive Firewall Management: Magento's firewall is regularly maintained to manage Magento logs and alerts, providing immediate coverage against evolving threats. Adobe's customer support addresses service issues that may disrupt legitimate traffic and client-side requests.

• Effortless Deployment: Adobe handles the enablement and onboarding of the Web Application Firewall, typically activating the default policy in your environment within 2 to 3 weeks. The firewall is implemented through the Fastly CDN service, eliminating the need for users to install software or maintain hardware.

5. Maintains Site Uptime

Magento WAF ensures uninterrupted online store operation by blocking potential threats that could slow down or cause Magento website downtime. This reliability fosters customer trust and helps preserve revenue.

6. Improved SEO

Meeting PCI DSS standards and providing top-tier web security through Magento WAF can positively impact search engine optimization (SEO). A secure Magento website earns trust from customers and search engines, potentially boosting your store's visibility in search results. High rankings enhance online visibility and credibility.

MGT's Web Application Firewall: How It Operates?

MGT Web Application Firewall (WAF) utilizes Magento WAF technology, serving as a managed solution within the AWS WAF framework. Seamlessly integrated with the Application Load Balancer (ALB), MGT WAF intercepts and filters malicious traffic before it reaches the server hosting your Magento shop. It is specifically engineered to examine HTTP/S requests at the application layer, ensuring the safeguarding of Magento websites.

It safeguards your Magento store from prevalent web exploits that could disrupt availability, compromise security, or overburden resources.

MGT WAF also allows blocking IPs, countries, and bots and configuring rate limits to prevent HTTP flood attacks that may impair availability and site performance.

It captures raw requests containing IP addresses, geo-locations, URIs, User-Agent, and Referrers, presenting real-time metrics.

Functionality:

MGT WAF offers precise control over traffic reaching your Magento stores. It enables the creation of security rules to manage bot traffic and prevent common attack patterns like SQL injection or cross-site scripting. Customizable rules can filter out specific traffic patterns.

You receive a pre-configured set of rules managed by the MGT team, who also assist in setting up and installing the Magento 2 module for your shop. These rules are continuously updated and play a pivotal role in preserving the security of Magento stores, guarding against threats such as injection and brute force attacks.

11 Security Features of MGT Web Application Firewall (WAF)

1. Mitigation of DDoS Attacks

MGT WAF is a secure defense mechanism against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, offering your Magento store uninterrupted Magento customer service availability. Your store maintains operational continuity by effectively repelling DDoS threats, ensuring a consistent and reliable customer shopping experience.

2. Protection Against SQL-Injection

This firewall provides vigilant protection by meticulously filtering out SQL injection attempts. It includes query parameters, headers, inputs, and body data. It helps strengthen your Magento store's security, safeguarding sensitive data from potential breaches.

3. Efficient Magento Module

Simplify access control with the help of the Magento module integrated into MGT WAF. This module facilitates the management of blocked IPs, countries, bots, and whitelisted IPs directly from your Magento backend. This streamlined approach empowers you to control and regulate traffic to your Magento store efficiently.

4. Preventing Linux Attacks

MGT WAF enhances your store's security by identifying and preventing request patterns linked to vulnerabilities in the Linux operating system. It includes preventing Local File Inclusion attacks ensuring your store remains resilient against potential threats.

5. Rate Limit for Protection

Defend your Magento shop against the detrimental impact of brute-force HTTP flood attacks, which can significantly degrade performance and availability. MGT WAF's rate-limiting feature safeguards your store's accessibility and responsiveness even in the face of such attacks.

6. Real-time Visibility

MGT WAF offers real-time metrics and raw request capture. These features provide valuable insights into various aspects, including IP addresses, geolocations, URIs, user agents, and referrers.

These insights are displayed in real-time and empower you to make informed decisions and maintain heightened vigilance over your Magento store's traffic.

7. Country Blocking

Web Application Firewall by MGT Commerce enhances your store's security posture by effectively restricting access from undesired countries or regions.

MGT WAF's country-blocking feature empowers you to tailor your store's accessibility, ensuring that it aligns with your specific geographic targeting and Magento security requirements.

8. Bot and IP Blocking

It effortlessly strengthens your store's defenses by blocking unauthorized access attempts from malicious bots and IPs. It includes IPv4 and IPv6 addresses that cause malicious traffic.

By proactively blocking these potential threats, MGT WAF ensures that your Magento website remains protected against a wide range of security risks, including:

1. XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) Attacks: These are malicious code injections into trusted websites, typically initiated when a user clicks on infected links, leading to compromised browsers and potential data breaches.

2. General Injection Attacks: A broad class of variable attack vectors that target programs with untrusted inputs, potentially enabling attackers to access data repositories.

3. Vulnerabilities from Development Mistakes: During website development, coding errors or "bugs" can inadvertently create vulnerabilities that malicious actors exploit, potentially compromising data, performance, and data transfer between layers.

4. Unencrypted HTTP Code: The absence of encryption in HTTP allows hackers to access data, potentially exposing sensitive information and customer credentials.

9. Automatic WAF Updates

MGT WAF offers the convenience of automatic updates to safeguard your store against emerging threats. This proactive approach ensures that your Magento store's security measures remain up-to-date, providing continuous protection without manual intervention.

10. Magento Backend IP Restriction

MGT’s firewall also elevates your Magento backend's security by implementing IP restrictions, permitting access exclusively to whitelisted IPs. This additional layer of security minimizes the risk of unauthorized access and strengthens your store's defenses.

11. Fully Managed and Supported

Enjoy the advantages of comprehensive management and support services our dedicated team offers. This commitment guarantees the ongoing effectiveness and responsiveness of MGT WAF.

Why Use MGT’s Web Application Firewall for Magento?

1. Data Monitoring and Integrity: MGT Web Application Firewall ensures the continuous monitoring and maintenance of data integrity, ensuring that all data remains in proper order.

2. Malicious Data Prevention: It blocks malicious data and associated port origins, preventing potential security breaches.

3. Customer Data Protection: Safeguarding customer data maintains customer trust and loyalty, preventing any compromise of sensitive information that could lead customers to seek alternatives.

4. Geographic Traffic Control: Blocking traffic from specific countries allows resource allocation to more relevant users and helps manage access effectively.

5. Whitelisted IP Access: Exclusive access rights are granted to whitelisted IPs, providing privileges to authorized entities.

6. Issue Resolution: MGT WAF aids in resolving queries and addressing concerns promptly.

7. Fair Resource Distribution: Ensuring fair distribution prevents any IP address from monopolizing resources, providing equitable access to all.

8. Data Management: Comprehensive data management features enable users to view and customize settings directly from the Magento store interface. It includes features to block IPs and restrict countries.

FAQs

1. What measures does Magento's Web Application Firewall (WAF) take against hacking attempts?

The Magento WAF actively monitors network traffic, implementing predefined rules to prevent hacking attempts. It strengthens security by instantly blocking hackers, virtually patching site vulnerabilities, and safeguarding against cyberattacks.

2. How does the AWS WAF help block specific countries or regions from accessing Magento sites?

AWS WAF empowers users to enforce geo-blocking, restricting access from particular countries or regions. This feature enhances security and aligns accessibility with specific geographic targeting requirements.

3. Is Cloudflare Necessary with MGT WAF?

No, Cloudflare is no longer necessary when utilizing MGT WAF. MGT WAF encompasses all the essential features required for Magento protection. It provides an intuitive Magento user interface (UI) within the Magento backend, simplifying the management of the WAF module. Additionally, users can conveniently apply new policies directly from the Magento backend interface.

4. Does Magento MGT WAF offer IP-blocking capabilities to bolster security?

Yes, MGT’s WAF facilitates IP blocking, allowing store owners to restrict access to whitelisted IPs exclusively. This additional layer of security minimizes unauthorized access risks to the Magento backend.

5. How does AWS WAF contribute to protecting against Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks?

AWS WAF is crucial in mitigating XSS attacks by meticulously filtering malicious code injections into trusted websites. This mechanism prevents compromised browsers and potential data breaches.

6. What role does authentication play in securing Magento sites?

Authentication is pivotal in securing Magento sites, ensuring only authorized entities access sensitive areas like the admin dashboard. Implementing strong authentication protocols mitigates the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

7. Can AWS WAF help prevent CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) attacks for Magento stores?

Yes, AWS WAF aids in preventing CSRF attacks by scrutinizing and validating user requests, thereby blocking unauthorized actions. It helps safeguard against malicious attempts to perform actions on behalf of authenticated users.

Summary

Magento WAF ensures reliable security for your online store. It promptly blocks hacking attempts, fortifies against malware, and safeguards against cyber threats. This guide covered the significance of Magento's WAF and its role in protecting sensitive data and ensuring compliance. It also emphasized MGT WAF’s benefits in enhancing performance, optimizing security, and maintaining site uptime. Explore MGT WAF in our Magento Multi-Server and Auto Scaling plans to secure your Magento server hosting.