F5's Access Policy Manager the Access Proxy for Zero Trust Architectures
In my previous article titled 7 Steps for Successfully Implementing Zero Trust Architectures, I detailed how to get started on the journey of implementing Zero Trust Architectures. In that article, I pointed out 7 steps I felt were critical in effectively implementing a Zero Trust Architecture. One of the necessary steps was having a robust Access Proxy. This article will showcase F5’s robust Access Proxy. In a Zero Trust architecture the centralized control point for all clients and applications is the Access Proxy. At the Access Proxy we need to handle authentication, authorization, and centralized logging. This Access Proxy should interface with multiple systems for authentication, handling both multi factor authentication and Single Sign On (SSO) to relieve users of the burden of logging into multiple systems. This Access Proxy initially checks and continuously monitors devices for the required configuration. Finally, robust Access Proxy should be able to seamlessly integrate with third party solutions. F5’s Access Proxy is the Access Policy Manager (APM). APM is one of the best Access Proxy’s on the market. The following sections will highlight the versatility and ease that F5’s solution offers: Select Appropriate Configuration F5 released Access Guided Configurations to make it simple and intuitive. The image below illustrates all the guided configurations available at the time of this article. This article we will focus on the Zero Trust selection. Click the Zero Trust option Verify Required Configuration F5 will verify that basic configuration items required are present. If not, you will be guided through the steps. Here the base configuration is already in place. Select Appropriate Configuration Determine whether a single or multi proxy topology is required. You are presented a diagram and a description to help make the decision based on your requirements. Select Appropriate Configuration Object The next decision is the enabling/leaving unselected any of the following items based on how you decided to implement this solution. The user will be presented different options based on their previous selections. ● Device Posture ● MFA ● SSO ● Application Group ● Webtop Select Appropriate Authentication Properties Based on your environment you are offered the authentication type required and supported by APM. Select Appropriate MFA Properties - If Selected F5 has developed third party integrations based on demand from customers. This simplifies and streamlines the process. Review and Modify Session Management Variables F5 provides the opportunity to fine tune session variables before finalizing the configuration. The form has default values provided, if you are unsure. Review and Modify Final Deployment The final step in this Guide Configuration before deployment is reviewing and the ability to edit anything previously configured before deployment. Closing – As illustrated, F5’s APM solution deployed as an Identity Aware Proxy nicely fits in a Zero Trust Architecture. IAP is a single control point for all users and devices accessing your applications. IAP continuously monitors users and devices and applies access control policies as finely grained as you specify. It will handle SSO and MFA if configured. The APM has the ability to be configured to implement a per-request policy enforcement posture to better align with a Zero Trust Architecture. This article was not meant for a step by step guide to implement F5’s APM in a Zero Trust Architecture. This was to show the ease of deployment and how this implementation walks one through the setup. https://www.f5.com/company/blog/zero-trust-azure-active-directory-access-big-ip-apm For detailed steps I have linked several resources below. https://clouddocs.f5.com/training/community/access-solutions/ https://clouddocs.f5.com/training/community/iam/html/class2/class2.html #zerotrust #ZT #ZTA #ZTNA
F5 TIC3.0 Capability Mappings
About The information below lists how F5 products address TIC 3.0 capability requirements (Dec 2023/Version 3.1) from the context of how F5 can help the broader agency. Important Note: Prior to reading this please read each capability as defined in https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/CISA%20TIC%203.0%20Security%20Capabilities%20Catalog_508c.pdf If a capability is not explicitly listed it should be assumed the F5 product does not meet the requirement. At the core the security provided by TIC 3.0 is based on Zero Trust. If you would like to learn more about how F5 can help your agency meet its Zero Trust requirements, please contact your local account team for additional detail. F5 Products Background F5 BIG-IP is a reverse proxy with web application security and authentication capabilities. BIG-IP provides these capabilities for traditional applications. F5 BIG-IP delivers applications securely, efficiently and at scale. BIG-IP Web Application Firewall protects applications from the ever-evolving security threat landscape. Specific BIG-IP software modules are matched to certain capabilities below where applicable. F5 NGINX Plusis a reverse proxy with web application security and authentication capabilities in a containerized format. NGINX+ typical use cases is to provide these protections for modern containerized applications. F5 Distributed Cloud is a SaaS offering that provides Application Delivery, WAAP, DNS, DDOS to applications as an edge service. F5 Distributed Cloud also offers a “Customer Edge” CE that provides many of these same capabilities on-prem or in a Cloud Service Provider. F5 Distributed Cloud will be referred to as “F5 XC” below. TIC 3.0 Capabilities Universal Security Capabilities Central Log Management with Analysis BIG-IP BIG-IP provides application security and telemetry logging enterprise wide to a centralized log store. NGINX Plus NGINX Plus provides application security and telemetry logging enterprise wide to a centralized log store. F5 XC F5 XC provides application security and telemetry logging enterprise wide to a centralized log store. Configuration Management BIG-IP BIG-IP configuration and capabilities can be fully automated and orchestrated. NGINX Plus NGINX Plus configuration and capabilities can be fully automated and orchestrated. F5 XC F5 XC configuration and capabilities can be fully automated and orchestrated. Incident Response Planning and Incident Handling BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides the ability to detect, prevent and log application security events. NGINX Plus F5 NGINX Plus provides the ability to detect, prevent and log application security events in a containerized form factor. F5 XC F5 Distributed Cloud provides the ability to detect, prevent and log application security events. Strong Authentication BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP supports requiring SAML, OIDC, Active Directory, and mTLS authentication before a client can access an application NGINX Plus F5 BIG-IP NGINX Plus supports requiring OIDC, and mTLS authentication before a client can access an application containerized format. F5 XC N/A Enterprise Threat Intelligence BIG-IP F5 provides threat intelligence feeds that help organizations detect whether they are a target of a threat campaign. This service can be leveraged by BIG-IP. NGINX Plus F5 provides threat intelligence feeds that help organizations detect whether they are a target of a threat campaign. This service can be leveraged by NGINX Plus. F5 XC F5 provides threat intelligence feeds that help organizations detect whether they are a target of a threat campaign. This service can be leveraged by F5 XC. Dynamic Threat Discovery BIG-IP BIG-IP can learn HTTP traffic patterns and establish a baseline to protect applications. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Continuous Monitoring Reporting BIG-IP BIG-IP provides application security and telemetry logging providing vital application access, performance, and threat data for analysis. NGINX Plus NGINX Plus provides application security and telemetry logging providing vital application access, performance, and threat data for analysis. F5 XC F5 XC provides application security and telemetry logging providing vital application access, performance, and threat data for analysis. Web PEP Capabilities Break and Inspect BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides the ability to decrypt TLS traffic and send the decrypted traffic to any number of security devices, allowing the security devices. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Active Content Mitigation BIG-IP BIG-IP provides the ability to decrypt TLS traffic and send this traffic to a content filtering solution for further inspection. This allows the filtering solution to inspect previously encrypted traffic and remove any malicious content. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Certificate Denylisting BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP can enforce certification revocation on clients (human or non-human) presenting certificates (mTLS/Smart Card/CAC/PIV) via OCSP or CRLs before granting access to the application. BIG-IP can also be configured to deny certificates based on a blacklist. NGINX Plus F5 BIG-IP can enforce certification revocation on clients (human or non-human) presenting certificates (mTLS/Smart Card/CAC/PIV) via OCSP or CRLs before granting access to the application. F5 XC N/A Content Filtering BIG-IP BIG-IP provides the ability to decrypt TLS traffic and send this traffic to a content filtering solution for further inspection. This allows the filtering solution to inspect previously encrypted traffic and remove any malicious content. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Authenticated Proxy BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP is a reverse proxy that provides the ability to require SAML, OIDC, Active Directory and mTLS authentication before a client can access an application. NGINX Plus F5 BIG-IP NGINX Plus is a reverse proxy that provides the ability to require OIDC, and mTLS authentication before a client can access an application in a containerized format. F5 XC N/A Data Loss Prevention BIG-IP BIG-IP can detect and block sensitive data leaving an application. Data patterns that are deemed sensitive can be added. Additionally, BIG-IP provides the ability to decrypt TLS traffic and send this traffic to a DLP solution for further inspection preventing sensitive data leakage. NGINX Plus NGINX Plus can detect and block sensitive data leaving an application. Data patterns that are deemed sensitive can be added. F5 XC F5 XC can detect and block sensitive data leaving an application. Data patterns that are deemed sensitive can be added. Domain Resolution Filtering BIG-IP BIG-IP can report of block DNS over HTTPS originating from or destined for your agency. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Protocol Compliance Enforcement BIG-IP BIG-IP provides protocol compliance for both HTTP and DNS with the ability to report or reject traffic that is out of compliance. NGINX Plus NGINX Plus provides protocol compliance for HTTP with the ability to report or reject traffic that is out of compliance. F5 XC F5 XC provides protocol compliance for HTTP with the ability to report or reject traffic that is out of compliance. Domain Category Filtering BIG-IP BIG-IP provides break and inspect capabilities for traffic egressing from the network. Categories may be configured to bypass break and inspect for domain categories (e.g., banking, medical, government). This is typically done so that PII data is not inspected. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC F5 XC CEs provide forward proxy capabilities with the ability to restrict domain and URL access. https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs/how-to/network-firewall/forward-proxy-policies Domain Reputation Filtering BIG-IP BIG-IP provides the ability to deny access to domains via a list or categories of domains enforced at the HTTP protocol layer. Domain filtering can also be provided via DNS using a list of domains or an integration with a RPZ provider such as Spamhaus or SUBRL. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Bandwidth Control BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides the ability to limit bandwidth on a per application basis. https://techdocs.f5.com/en-us/BIG-IP-16-1-0/big-ip-policy-enforcement-manager-implementations/managing-traffic-with-bandwidth-controllers.html NGINX Plus F5 NGINX Plus provides the ability to rate limit on a per application basis in a containerized/Kubernetes environment. F5 XC F5 XC provides the ability to rate limit on a per application basis at a regional edge, on-prem or in the cloud. Malicious Content Filtering BIG-IP BIG-IP provides the ability to decrypt TLS traffic and send this traffic to a content filtering solution for further inspection. This allows the filtering solution to inspect previously encrypted traffic and remove any malicious content. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Access Control BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides the ability to define policies to limit actions on protected web applications. This is achieved by limiting on a per user and per application basis the URLs and HTTP methods that a user is permitted to access. NGINX Plus F5 NGINX Plus provides the ability to define policies to limit actions on protected web applications. This is achieved by limiting on a per user and per application basis the URLs and HTTP methods that a user is permitted to access. F5 XC F5 XC provides the ability to define policies to limit actions on protected web applications. This is achieved by limiting on a per user and per application basis the URLs and HTTP methods that a user is permitted to access. Resiliency PEP Security Capabilities Distributed Denial of Service Protections BIG-IP BIG-IP provides protection against DOS attacks at layers 3-7 by providing the ability to learn traffic patterns and establish a baseline. BIG-IP Layer 3-4 capabilities provide protection against IP, UDP and TCP based attacks. Layer 7 capabilities provide protection against DNS, TLS and HTTP based DOS attacks. NGINX Plus NGINX Plus provides protection against HTTP based DOS attacks. F5 XC F5 XC provides protection against HTTP based DOS attacks. Elastic Expansion BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides the ability to scale out applications by distributed the application traffic across as many instances as needed. NGINX Plus F5 NGINX Plus provides the ability to scale out applications by distributed the application traffic across as many instances as needed in a containerized environment. F5 XC F5 XC provides the ability to scale out applications by distributed the application traffic across as many instances as needed. Regional Delivery BIG-IP N/A NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC F5 XC provides the ability through a Regional Edge to host containerized application and their associated services through a secure scalable fabric. Additionally, F5 XC’s Regional Edge provides the ability to scale, secure and deliver applications across a geographically dispersed set of environments. Domain Name System PEP Security Capabilities Domain Name Sinkholing BIG-IP Domain Name Sinkholing DNS using a list of domains or an integration with a RPZ provider such as Spamhaus or SUBRL. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Domain Name Verification for Agency Clients BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP can enforce that queries from agency clients utilize DNSSEC NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Domain Name Validation for Agency Domains BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP can enforce DNSSEC chain of trust for all agency domains. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Intrusion Detection PEP Security Capabilities Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides Intrusion Detection capabilities that allow for the reporting and blocking of threats over a wide range of protocols. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Enterprise PEP Security Capabilities Virtual Private Network BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides site-to-site IPSEC capabilities along with end user remote access SSL VPN. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Application Container BIG-IP N/A NGINX Plus F5 NGINX Plus provides load balancing, ingress services (for K8s), WAF, HTTP DOS protection and API Security for containerized services. F5 XC F5 XC provides the ability to host containerized services in F5 XC Regional Edge. Services PEP Security Capabilities Active Content Mitigation BIG-IP BIG-IP provides the ability to decrypt TLS traffic and send this traffic to a content filtering solution for further inspection. This allows the filtering solution to inspect previously encrypted traffic and remove any malicious content. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Data Loss Prevention BIG-IP BIG-IP can detect and block sensitive data leaving an application. Data patterns that are deemed sensitive can be added. Additionally, BIG-IP provides the ability to decrypt TLS traffic and send this traffic to a DLP solution for further inspection preventing sensitive data leakage. NGINX Plus NGINX Plus can detect and block sensitive data leaving an application. Data patterns that are deemed sensitive can be added. F5 XC F5 XC can detect and block sensitive data leaving an application. Data patterns that are deemed sensitive can be added. Protocol Compliance Enforcement BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides the ability to enforce protocol compliance for HTTP and DNS protocols. NGINX Plus F5 NGINX Plus provides the ability to enforce protocol compliance for the HTTP protocol. F5 XC F5 XC provides the ability to enforce protocol compliance for the HTTP protocol. Malicious Content Filtering BIG-IP BIG-IP provides the ability to decrypt TLS traffic and send this traffic to a content filtering solution for further inspection. This allows the filtering solution to inspect previously encrypted traffic and remove any malicious content. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Access Control BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides the ability to define policies to limit actions on protected web applications. This is achieved by limiting on a per user and per application basis the URLs and HTTP methods that a user is permitted to access. NGINX Plus F5 NGINX Plus provides the ability to define policies to limit actions on protected web applications. This is achieved by limiting on a per user and per application basis the URLs and HTTP methods that a user is permitted to access. F5 XC F5 XC provides the ability to define policies to limit actions on protected web applications. This is achieved by limiting on a per user and per application basis the URLs and HTTP methods that a user is permitted to access. Identity PEP Security Capabilities Behavioral Baselining BIG-IP BIG-IP can learn HTTP traffic patterns and establish a baseline to protect applications. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A Multi-factor Authentication BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP supports requiring SAML, OIDC, Active Directory, and mTLS authentication before a client can access an application NGINX Plus F5 BIG-IP NGINX Plus supports requiring OIDC, and mTLS authentication before a client can access an application containerized format. F5 XC N/A Continuous Authentication BIG-IP F5 BIG-IP provides the ability to authenticate users prior to accessing an application. After access to the application BIG-IP can enforce periodic requests for authentication to reverify the client’s identity in addition to their OS posture. NGINX Plus N/A F5 XC N/A
