Advanced WAF v16.0 - Declarative API
Since v15.1 (in draft), F5® BIG-IP® Advanced WAF™ canimport Declarative WAF policy in JSON format. The F5® BIG-IP® Advanced Web Application Firewall (Advanced WAF) security policies can be deployed using the declarative JSON format, facilitating easy integration into a CI/CD pipeline. The declarative policies are extracted from a source control system, for example Git, and imported into the BIG-IP. Using the provided declarative policy templates, you can modify the necessary parameters, save the JSON file, and import the updated security policy into your BIG-IP devices. The declarative policy copies the content of the template and adds the adjustments and modifications on to it. The templates therefore allow you to concentrate only on the specific settings that need to be adapted for the specific application that the policy protects. ThisDeclarative WAF JSON policyis similar toNGINX App Protect policy. You can find more information on theDeclarative Policyhere : NAP :https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-app-protect/policy/ Adv. WAF :https://techdocs.f5.com/en-us/bigip-15-1-0/big-ip-declarative-security-policy.html Audience This guide is written for IT professionals who need to automate their WAF policy and are familiar with Advanced WAF configuration. These IT professionals can fill a variety of roles: SecOps deploying and maintaining WAF policy in Advanced WAF DevOps deploying applications in modern environment and willing to integrate Advanced WAF in their CI/CD pipeline F5 partners who sell technology or create implementation documentation This article covershow to PUSH/PULL a declarative WAF policy in Advanced WAF: With Postman With AS3 Table of contents Upload Policy in BIG-IP Check the import Apply the policy OpenAPI Spec File import AS3 declaration CI/CD integration Find the Policy-ID Update an existing policy Video demonstration First of all, you need aJSON WAF policy, as below : { "policy": { "name": "policy-api-arcadia", "description": "Arcadia API", "template": { "name": "POLICY_TEMPLATE_API_SECURITY" }, "enforcementMode": "blocking", "server-technologies": [ { "serverTechnologyName": "MySQL" }, { "serverTechnologyName": "Unix/Linux" }, { "serverTechnologyName": "MongoDB" } ], "signature-settings": { "signatureStaging": false }, "policy-builder": { "learnOnlyFromNonBotTraffic": false } } } 1. Upload Policy in BIG-IP There are 2 options to upload a JSON file into the BIG-IP: 1.1 Either youPUSHthe file into the BIG-IP and you IMPORT IT OR 1.2 the BIG-IPPULLthe file froma repository (and the IMPORT is included)<- BEST option 1.1PUSH JSON file into the BIG-IP The call is below. As you can notice, it requires a 'Content-Range' header. And the value is 0-(filesize-1)/filesize. In the example below, the file size is 662 bytes. This is not easy to integrate in a CICD pipeline, so we created the PULL method instead of the PUSH (in v16.0) curl --location --request POST 'https://10.1.1.12/mgmt/tm/asm/file-transfer/uploads/policy-api.json' \ --header 'Content-Range: 0-661/662' \ --header 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --data-binary '@/C:/Users/user/Desktop/policy-api.json' At this stage,the policy is still a filein the BIG-IP file system. We need toimportit into Adv. WAF. To do so, the next call is required. This call import the file "policy-api.json" uploaded previously. AnCREATEthe policy /Common/policy-api-arcadia curl --location --request POST 'https://10.1.1.12/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/import-policy/' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/javascript' \ --header 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' \ --data-raw '{ "filename":"policy-api.json", "policy": { "fullPath":"/Common/policy-api-arcadia" } }' 1.2PULL JSON file from a repository Here, theJSON file is hosted somewhere(in Gitlab or Github ...). And theBIG-IP will pull it. The call is below. As you can notice, the call refers to the remote repo and the body is a JSON payload. Just change the link value with your JSON policy URL. With one call, the policy isPULLEDandIMPORTED. curl --location --request POST 'https://10.1.1.12/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/import-policy/' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --header 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' \ --data-raw '{ "fileReference": { "link": "http://10.1.20.4/root/as3-waf/-/raw/master/policy-api.json" } }' Asecond versionof this call exists, and refer to the fullPath of the policy.This will allow you to update the policy, from a second version of the JSON file, easily.One call for the creation and the update. As you can notice below, we add the"policy":"fullPath" directive. The value of the "fullPath" is thepartitionand thename of the policyset in the JSON policy file. This method is VERY USEFUL for CI/CD integrations. curl --location --request POST 'https://10.1.1.12/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/import-policy/' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --header 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' \ --data-raw '{ "fileReference": { "link": "http://10.1.20.4/root/as3-waf/-/raw/master/policy-api.json" }, "policy": { "fullPath":"/Common/policy-api-arcadia" } }' 2. Check the IMPORT Check if the IMPORT worked. To do so, run the next call. curl --location --request GET 'https://10.1.1.12/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/import-policy/' \ --header 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' \ You should see a 200 OK, with the content below (truncated in this example). Please notice the"status":"COMPLETED". { "kind": "tm:asm:tasks:import-policy:import-policy-taskcollectionstate", "selfLink": "https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/import-policy?ver=16.0.0", "totalItems": 11, "items": [ { "isBase64": false, "executionStartTime": "2020-07-21T15:50:22Z", "status": "COMPLETED", "lastUpdateMicros": 1.595346627e+15, "getPolicyAttributesOnly": false, ... From now, your policy is imported and created in the BIG-IP. You can assign it to a VS as usual (Imperative Call or AS3 Call).But in the next session, I will show you how to create a Service with AS3 including the WAF policy. 3. APPLY the policy As you may know, a WAF policy needs to be applied after each change. This is the call. curl --location --request POST 'https://10.1.1.12/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/apply-policy/' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --header 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' \ --data-raw '{"policy":{"fullPath":"/Common/policy-api-arcadia"}}' 4. OpenAPI spec file IMPORT As you know,Adv. WAF supports OpenAPI spec (2.0 and 3.0). Now, with the declarative WAF, we can import the OAS file as well. The BEST solution, is toPULL the OAS filefrom a repo. And in most of the customer' projects, it will be the case. In the example below, the OAS file is hosted in SwaggerHub(Github for Swagger files). But the file could reside in a private Gitlab repo for instance. The URL of the projectis :https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis/F5EMEASSA/Arcadia-OAS3/1.0.0-oas3 The URL of the OAS file is :https://api.swaggerhub.com/apis/F5EMEASSA/Arcadia-OAS3/1.0.0-oas3 This swagger file (OpenAPI 3.0 Spec file) includes all the application URL and parameters. What's more, it includes the documentation (for NGINX APIm Dev Portal). Now, it ispretty easy to create a WAF JSON Policy with API Security template, referring to the OAS file. Below, you can notice thenew section "open-api-files"with the link reference to SwaggerHub. And thenew templatePOLICY_TEMPLATE_API_SECURITY. Now, when I upload / import and apply the policy, Adv. WAF will download the OAS file from SwaggerHub and create the policy based on API_Security template. { "policy": { "name": "policy-api-arcadia", "description": "Arcadia API", "template": { "name": "POLICY_TEMPLATE_API_SECURITY" }, "enforcementMode": "blocking", "server-technologies": [ { "serverTechnologyName": "MySQL" }, { "serverTechnologyName": "Unix/Linux" }, { "serverTechnologyName": "MongoDB" } ], "signature-settings": { "signatureStaging": false }, "policy-builder": { "learnOnlyFromNonBotTraffic": false }, "open-api-files": [ { "link": "https://api.swaggerhub.com/apis/F5EMEASSA/Arcadia-OAS3/1.0.0-oas3" } ] } } 5. AS3 declaration Now, it is time to learn how we cando all of these steps in one call with AS3(3.18 minimum). The documentation is here :https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/extensions/f5-appsvcs-extension/latest/declarations/application-security.html?highlight=waf_policy#virtual-service-referencing-an-external-security-policy With thisAS3 declaration, we: Import the WAF policy from a external repo Import the Swagger file (if the WAF policy refers to an OAS file) from an external repo Create the service { "class": "AS3", "action": "deploy", "persist": true, "declaration": { "class": "ADC", "schemaVersion": "3.2.0", "id": "Prod_API_AS3", "API-Prod": { "class": "Tenant", "defaultRouteDomain": 0, "API": { "class": "Application", "template": "generic", "VS_API": { "class": "Service_HTTPS", "remark": "Accepts HTTPS/TLS connections on port 443", "virtualAddresses": ["10.1.10.27"], "redirect80": false, "pool": "pool_NGINX_API_AS3", "policyWAF": { "use": "Arcadia_WAF_API_policy" }, "securityLogProfiles": [{ "bigip": "/Common/Log all requests" }], "profileTCP": { "egress": "wan", "ingress": { "use": "TCP_Profile" } }, "profileHTTP": { "use": "custom_http_profile" }, "serverTLS": { "bigip": "/Common/arcadia_client_ssl" } }, "Arcadia_WAF_API_policy": { "class": "WAF_Policy", "url": "http://10.1.20.4/root/as3-waf-api/-/raw/master/policy-api.json", "ignoreChanges": true }, "pool_NGINX_API_AS3": { "class": "Pool", "monitors": ["http"], "members": [{ "servicePort": 8080, "serverAddresses": ["10.1.20.9"] }] }, "custom_http_profile": { "class": "HTTP_Profile", "xForwardedFor": true }, "TCP_Profile": { "class": "TCP_Profile", "idleTimeout": 60 } } } } } 6. CI/CID integration As you can notice, it is very easy to create a service with a WAF policy pulled from an external repo. So, it is easy to integrate these calls (or the AS3 call) into a CI/CD pipeline. Below, an Ansible playbook example. This playbook run the AS3 call above. That's it :) --- - hosts: bigip connection: local gather_facts: false vars: my_admin: "admin" my_password: "admin" bigip: "10.1.1.12" tasks: - name: Deploy AS3 WebApp uri: url: "https://{{ bigip }}/mgmt/shared/appsvcs/declare" method: POST headers: "Content-Type": "application/json" "Authorization": "Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=" body: "{{ lookup('file','as3.json') }}" body_format: json validate_certs: no status_code: 200 7. FIND the Policy-ID When the policy is created, a Policy-ID is assigned. By default, this ID doesn't appearanywhere. Neither in the GUI, nor in the response after the creation. You have to calculate it or ask for it. This ID is required for several actions in a CI/CD pipeline. 7.1 Calculate the Policy-ID Wecreated this python script to calculate the Policy-ID. It is an hash from the Policy name (including the partition). For the previous created policy named"/Common/policy-api-arcadia",the policy ID is"Ar5wrwmFRroUYsMA6DuxlQ" Paste this python codein a newwaf-policy-id.pyfile, and run the commandpython waf-policy-id.py "/Common/policy-api-arcadia" Outcome will beThe Policy-ID for /Common/policy-api-arcadia is: Ar5wrwmFRroUYsMA6DuxlQ #!/usr/bin/python from hashlib import md5 import base64 import sys pname = sys.argv[1] print 'The Policy-ID for', sys.argv[1], 'is:', base64.b64encode(md5(pname.encode()).digest()).replace("=", "") 7.2 Retrieve the Policy-ID and fullPath with a REST API call Make this call below, and you will see in the response, all the policy creations. Find yours and collect thePolicyReference directive.The Policy-ID is in the link value "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/policies/Ar5wrwmFRroUYsMA6DuxlQ?ver=16.0.0" You can see as well, at the end of the definition, the "fileReference"referring to the JSON file pulled by the BIG-IP. And please notice the"fullPath", required if you want to update your policy curl --location --request GET 'https://10.1.1.12/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/import-policy/' \ --header 'Content-Range: 0-601/601' \ --header 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' \ { "isBase64": false, "executionStartTime": "2020-07-22T11:23:42Z", "status": "COMPLETED", "lastUpdateMicros": 1.595417027e+15, "getPolicyAttributesOnly": false, "kind": "tm:asm:tasks:import-policy:import-policy-taskstate", "selfLink": "https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/import-policy/B45J0ySjSJ9y9fsPZ2JNvA?ver=16.0.0", "filename": "", "policyReference": { "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/policies/Ar5wrwmFRroUYsMA6DuxlQ?ver=16.0.0", "fullPath": "/Common/policy-api-arcadia" }, "endTime": "2020-07-22T11:23:47Z", "startTime": "2020-07-22T11:23:42Z", "id": "B45J0ySjSJ9y9fsPZ2JNvA", "retainInheritanceSettings": false, "result": { "policyReference": { "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/tm/asm/policies/Ar5wrwmFRroUYsMA6DuxlQ?ver=16.0.0", "fullPath": "/Common/policy-api-arcadia" }, "message": "The operation was completed successfully. The security policy name is '/Common/policy-api-arcadia'. " }, "fileReference": { "link": "http://10.1.20.4/root/as3-waf/-/raw/master/policy-api.json" } }, 8 UPDATE an existing policy It is pretty easy to update the WAF policy from a new JSON file version. To do so, collect from the previous call7.2 Retrieve the Policy-ID and fullPath with a REST API callthe"Policy" and"fullPath"directive. This is the path of the Policy in the BIG-IP. Then run the call below, same as1.2 PULL JSON file from a repository,but add thePolicy and fullPath directives Don't forget to APPLY this new version of the policy3. APPLY the policy curl --location --request POST 'https://10.1.1.12/mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/import-policy/' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --header 'Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=' \ --data-raw '{ "fileReference": { "link": "http://10.1.20.4/root/as3-waf/-/raw/master/policy-api.json" }, "policy": { "fullPath":"/Common/policy-api-arcadia" } }' TIP : this call, above, can be used in place of the FIRST call when we created the policy "1.2PULL JSON file from a repository". But be careful, the fullPath is the name set in the JSON policy file. The 2 values need to match: "name": "policy-api-arcadia" in the JSON Policy file pulled by the BIG-IP "policy":"fullPath" in the POST call 9 Video demonstration In order to help you to understand how it looks with the BIG-IP, I created this video covering 4 topics explained in this article : The JSON WAF policy Pull the policy from a remote repository Update the WAF policy with a new version of the declarative JSON file Deploy a full service with AS3 and Declarative WAF policy At the end of this video, you will be able to adapt the REST Declarative API calls to your infrastructure, in order to deploy protected services with your CI/CD pipelines. Direct link to the video on DevCentral YouTube channel : https://youtu.be/EDvVwlwEFRwMitigating Application Threats with BIG-IP Next WAF
Overview of BIG-IP Next In today's modern world where the digital landscape is continuously evolving and security threats are becoming more sophisticated, the need for a robust and adaptive security solution is essential. BIG-IP Next is a next-generation solution which is setting a new standard for safeguarding your digital assets, protecting your applications, and empowering enterprises with the highest security efficacy.BIG-IP Next is the modernized solution optimized to simplify operations, enhance performance, and strengthen security. As per the official website, BIG-IP Next simplifies day-to-day ADC operations and accelerates application time-to-market through automation so that you can focus more on getting your apps online. BIG-IP Next’s modern, highly scalable software architecture is designed for maximum resiliency to support vast, dynamic application portfolios and their most complex traffic management and security policies, ensuring that applications are always available to end users. BIG-IP Next also provides deep insights into your application health, network performance, traffic patterns, and security threats to improve business decision-making. For a quick overview of BIG-IP Next and how the next-generation attributes can help you with your existing or new deployments, check out the video below. Here are some of the key capabilities that you can checkout and learn how you can mitigate app threats and security complexity with BIG-IP Next WAF: 1. Deploy HTTPS application with WAF Protection The first step in protecting your applications starts with onboarding your application in BIG-IP Next instance and creating a WAF security policy as per application requirements. Finally creating load balancers and applying the above-created WAF policies. Next, users can monitor the application traffic by navigating to their respective security dashboards and take necessary steps as per security insights. For more details, see this video. 2. Create and Manage Security Policies Sometimes creating security policies can be a time-consuming job, and BIG-IP Next has made this user-friendly for creating and managing security policies from a centralized UI. Users can create, delete or update their existing policies in fewer steps and can apply them directly to the applications, thereby decreasing the application delivery time to market. You can check out the video below for more details. 3. Create Security Policies using Templates One more advantage of BIG-IP Next is the support for creating security policies using templates and it’s just a one-click action using 'F5 BIG-IP Next’. Users can make use of default templates and protect their applications with zero effort, for ex. Using the Violation Rating Template. For more information, check below video. 4. Security Policy Migration Going through existing BIG-IP security policies and then creating the same ones in BIG-IP Next solution can be time-consuming. This is made easy so that users can migrate their security policy from 'F5 Advanced WAF' to 'F5 BIG-IP Next WAF' in a simple manner. With fewer steps, you can have your entire WAF security posture up without going through the rough step of creating them from scratch. Please refer to the video below for more insights. 5. Signatures and Threat Campaigns Update Regular update of attack signatures and threat campaigns is a vital step in safeguarding your applications against the latest attacks. This process is super easy using ‘F5 BIG-IP Next’ so that applications can mitigate them without the need for downtime. For step-by-step procedure to update signatures and threat campaigns, please check the video below. You can also check out the demo link below for detailed insights of how BIG-IP Next WAF enables the migration of apps and policies between BIG-IP TMOS and BIG-IP Next. The demo also shows how to deploy new web applications with WAF security policies included within BIG-IP Next Central Manager and finally how to analyze and respond to security incidents within the Next WAF dashboard. Reference links What is BIG-IP Next? | DevCentral Getting Started with BIG-IP Next: Fundamentals | DevCentral https://www.f5.com/products/big-ip-services/big-ip-next
Deploy WAF on any Edge with F5 Distributed Cloud (SaaS Console, Automation)
F5 XC WAAP/WAF presents a clear advantage over classical WAAP/WAFs in that it can be deployed on a variety of environments without loss of functionality. In this first article of a series, we present an overview of the main deployment options for XC WAAP while follow-on articles will dive deeper into the details of the deployment procedures.Enhance your Application Security using Client-side signals – Part 2
Elevate your web and mobile application security with F5's innovative integration of web proxy strategies and client-side signals in this two-part series. Dive into the three critical categories of client-side signals—human interaction, device environment, and network signals—to enhance your application security strategy. Gain practical insights on distinguishing between humans and bots, fingerprinting devices, and analyzing network signals, ensuring robust protection for your online applications.SMTP Smugglers Blues
The SMTP protocol has been vulnerable to email smuggling for decades. Many of the mail servers out there have mitigations in place to handle this vulnerability but not all of them, especially the quick libraries and add-ons you can find on web sites. Protecting your server from these attacks is simple with F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF and our SMTP Protocol Security profiles. Read to learn how to give those bad actors the “Smugglers Blues”Cookie Tampering Protection using F5 Distributed Cloud Platform
This article aims to cover the basics of cookies and then showed how intruders can tamper cookies to modify application behavior. Finally, we also showcased how F5 XC cookie tampering protection can be used to safeguard our sensitive cookie workloads.Mitigating OWASP API Security Top 10 risks using F5 NGINX App Protect
This 2019 API Security article covers the summary of OWASP API Security Top 10 – 2019 categories and newly published 2023 API security article covered introductory part of newest edition of OWASP API Security Top 10 risks – 2023. We will deep-dive into some of those common risks and how we can protect our applications against these vulnerabilities using F5 NGINX App Protect. Excessive Data Exposure Problem Statement: As shown below in one of the demo application API’s, Personal Identifiable Information (PII) data, like Credit Card Numbers (CCN) and U.S. Social Security Numbers (SSN), are visible in responses that are highly sensitive. So, we must hide these details to prevent personal data exploits. Solution: To prevent this vulnerability, we will use the DataGuard feature in NGINX App Protect, which validates all response data for sensitive details and will either mask the data or block those requests, as per the configured settings. First, we will configure DataGuard to mask the PII data as shown below and will apply this configuration. Next, if we resend the same request, we can see that the CCN/SSN numbers are masked, thereby preventing data breaches. If needed, we can update configurations to block this vulnerability after which all incoming requests for this endpoint will be blocked. If you open the security log and filter with this support ID, we can see that the request is either blocked or PII data is masked, as per the DataGuard configuration applied in the above section. Injection Problem Statement: Customer login pages without secure coding practices may have flaws. Intruders could use those flaws to exploit credential validation using different types of injections, like SQLi, command injections, etc. In our demo application, we have found an exploit which allows us to bypass credential validation using SQL injection (by using username as “' OR true --” and any password), thereby getting administrative access, as below: Solution: NGINX App Protect has a database of signatures that match this type of SQLi attacks. By configuring the WAF policy in blocking mode, NGINX App Protect can identify and block this attack, as shown below. If you check in the security log with this support ID, we can see that request is blocked because of SQL injection risk, as below. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring Problem Statement: Appropriate logging and monitoring solutions play a pivotal role in identifying attacks and also in finding the root cause for any security issues. Without these solutions, applications are fully exposed to attackers and SecOps is completely blind to identifying details of users and resources being accessed. Solution: NGINX provides different options to track logging details of applications for end-to-end visibility of every request both from a security and performance perspective. Users can change configurations as per their requirements and can also configure different logging mechanisms with different levels. Check the links below for more details on logging: https://www.nginx.com/blog/logging-upstream-nginx-traffic-cdn77/ https://www.nginx.com/blog/modsecurity-logging-and-debugging/ https://www.nginx.com/blog/using-nginx-logging-for-application-performance-monitoring/ https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/monitoring/logging/ https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-app-protect-waf/logging-overview/logs-overview/ Unrestricted Access to Sensitive Business Flows Problem Statement: By using the power of automation tools, attackers can now break through tough levels of protection. The inefficiency of APIs to detect automated bot tools not only causes business loss, but it can also adversely impact the services for genuine users of an application. Solution: NGINX App Protect has the best-in-class bot detection technology and can detect and label automation tools in different categories, like trusted, untrusted, and unknown. Depending on the appropriate configurations applied in the policy, requests generated from these tools are either blocked or alerted. Below is an example that shows how requests generated from the Postman automation tool are getting blocked. By filtering the security log with this support-id, we can see that the request is blocked because of an untrusted bot. Lack of Resources & Rate Limiting Problem Statement: APIs do not have any restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be requested by the end user. Above mentioned scenarios sometimes lead to poor API server performance, Denial of Service (DoS), and brute force attacks. Solution: NGINX App Protect provides different ways to rate limit the requests as per user requirements. A simple rate limiting use case configuration is able to block requests after reaching the limit, which is demonstrated below. Conclusion: In short, this article covered some common API vulnerabilities and shows how NGINX App Protect can be used as a mitigation solution to prevent these OWASP API security risks. Related resources for more information or to get started: F5 NGINX App Protect OWASP API Security Top 10 2019 OWASP API Security Top 10 2023Support of WAF Signature Staging in F5 Distributed Cloud (XC)
Introduction: Attack signatures are the rules and patterns which identifies attacks against your web application. When the Load balancer in the F5Distributed Cloud (XC)console receives a client request, it compares the request to the attack signatures associated with your WAF policy and detects if the pattern is matched. Hence, it will trigger an "attack signature detected" violation and will either alarm or block based on the enforcement mode of your WAF policy. A generic WAF policy would include only the attack signatures needed to protect your application. If too many are included, you waste resources on keeping up with signatures that you don't need. Same way, if you don't include enough, you might let an attack compromise your application. F5 XC WAF is supporting multiple states of attack signatures like enable, disable, suppress, auto-supress and staging. This article focusses on how F5 XC WAF supports staging and detects the staged attack signatures and gives the details of attack signatures by allowing them into the application. Staging: A request that triggers a staged signature will not cause the request to be blocked,but you will see signature trigger details in the security event. When a new/updated attack signature(s) is automatically placed in staging then you won't know how that attack signature is going to affect your application until you had some time to test it first. After you test the new signature(s), then you can take them out of staging, apply respective event action to protect your application! Environment: F5 Distributed Cloud Console Security Dashboard Configuration: Here is the step-by-step process of configuring the WAF Staging Signatures and validating them with new and updated signature attacks. Login to F5 Distributed Cloud Console and navigate to “Web App & API Protection” -> App Firewall and then click on `Add App Firewall`. Name the App Firewall Policy and configure it with given values. Navigate to “Web App & API Protection” à Load Balancers à HTTP Load Balancers and click on `Add HTTP Load Balancers`. Name the Load Balancer and Configure it with given values and associate the origin pool. Origin pool ``petstore-op`` configuration. Associate the initially created APP firewall ``waf-sig-staging`` under LB WAF configuration section. ``Save and Exit`` the configuration and Verify that the Load balancer has created successfully with the name ``petstore-op``. Validation: To verify the staging attacks, you need the signature attacks listed in attack signature DB. In this demo we are using the below newly added attack signature (200104860) and updated attack signature (200103281) Id’s. Now, Let’s try to access the LB domain with the updated attack signature Id i.e 200103281 and verify that the LB dashboard has detected the staged attack signature by reflecting the details. F5 XC Dashboard Event Log: Now try to access the LB domain with new signature attack adding the cookie in the request header. F5 XC Dashboard Event Log: Now, Disable the staging in WAF policy ``waf-sig-staging``. Let’s try to access the LB domain with new signature attack. F5 XC Dashboard Event Log: Conclusion: As you see from the demo, F5 XC WAF supports staging feature which will enhance the testing scope of newly added and updated attack signature(s). Reference: F5 Distributed Cloud WAF Attack SignaturesSecuring Applications using mTLS Supported by F5 Distributed Cloud
Introduction Mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS) is a process that establishes encrypted and secure TLS connection between the parties and ensures both parties use X.509 digital certificates to authenticate each other. It helps to prevent the malicious third-party attacks which will imitate the genuine applications.This authentication method helps when a server needs to ensure the authenticity and validity of either a specific user or device.As the SSL became outdated several companies like Skype, Cloudfare are now using mTLS to secure business servers. Not using TLS or other encryption tools without secure authentication leads to ‘man in the middle attacks.’ Using mTLS we can provide an identity to a server that can be cryptographically verified and makes your resources more flexible. mTLS with XFCC Header Not only supporting the mTLS process, F5 Distributed Cloud WAF is giving the feasibility to forward the Client certificate attributes (subject, issuer, root CA etc..) to origin server via x-forwarded-client-cert header which provides additional level of security when the origin server ensures to authenticate the client by receiving multiple requests from different clients. This XFCC header contains the following attributes by supporting multiple load balancer types like HTTPS with Automatic Certificate and HTTPS with Custom Certificate. Cert Chain Subject URI DNS How to Configure mTLS In this Demo we are using httpbin as an origin server which is associated through F5 XC Load Balancer. Here is the procedure to deploy the httpbin application, creating the custom certificates and step-by-step process of configuring mTLS with different LB (Load Balancer) types using F5 XC. Deploying HttpBin Application Here is the link to deploy the application using docker commands. Signing server/leaf cert with locally created Root CA Commands to generate CA Key and Cert: openssl genrsa -out root-key.pem 4096 openssl req -new -x509 -days 3650 -key root-key.pem -out root-crt.pem Commands to generate Server Certificate: openssl genrsa -out cert-key2.pem 4096 openssl req -new -sha256 -subj "/CN=test-domain1.local" -key cert-key2.pem -out cert2.csr echo "subjectAltName=DNS:test-domain1.local" >> extfile.cnf openssl x509 -req -sha256 -days 501 -in cert2.csr -CA root-crt.pem -CAkey root-key.pem -out cert2.pem -extfile extfile.cnf -CAcreateserial Note: Add the TLS Certificate to XC console, create a LB(HTTP/TCP) and attach origin pools and TLS certificates to it. In Ubuntu: Move above created CA certificate (ca-crt.pem) to /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/ca-crt.pem and modify "/etc/hosts" file by mapping the VIP(you can get this from your configured LB -> DNS info -> IP Addr) with domain, in this case the (test-domain1.local). mTLS with HTTPS Custom Certificate Log in the F5 Distributed Cloud Console and navigate to “Web APP & API Protection” module. Go to Load Balancers and Click on ‘Add HTTP Load Balancer’. Give the LB Name (test-mtls-cust-cert), Domain name (mtlscusttest.f5-hyd-demo.com), LB Type as HTTPS with Custom Certificate, Select the TLS configuration as Single Certificate and configure the certificate details. Click in ‘Add Item’ under TLS Certificates and upload the cert and key files by clicking on import from files. Click on apply and enable the mutual TLS, import the root cert info, and add the XFCC header value. Configure the origin pool by clicking on ‘Add Item’ under Origins. Select the created origin pool for httpbin. Click on ‘Apply’ and then save the LB configuration with ‘Save and Exit’. Now, we have created the Load Balancer with mTLS parameters. Let us verify the same with the origin server. mTLS with HTTPS with Automatic Certificate Log in the F5 Distributed Cloud Console and navigate to “Web APP & API Protection” module. Goto Load Balancers and Click on ‘Add HTTP Load Balancer’. Give the LB Name(mtls-auto-cert), Domain name (mtlstest.f5-hyd-demo.com), LB Type as HTTPS with Automatic Certificate, enable the mutual TLS and add the root certificate. Also, enable x-forwarded-client-cert header to add the parameters. Configure the origin pool by clicking on ‘Add Item’ under Origins. Select the created origin pool for httpbin. Click on ‘Apply’ and then save the LB configuration with ‘Save and Exit’. Now, we have created the HTTPS Auto Cert Load Balancer with mTLS parameters. Let us verify the same with the origin server. Conclusion As you can see from the demonstration, F5 Distributed Cloud WAF is providing the additional security to the origin servers by forwarding the client certificate info using mTLS XFCC header. Reference Links mTLS Insights Create root cert pair F5 Distributed Cloud WAF
