In the age of cloud computing, where data and other mission-critical assets are accessed over the Internet, it’s essential to secure your digital information. Information is crucial to malicious cybercrimes, but the fact is that nefarious individuals want to undermine it for purely financial gains.

Cloud comes with benefits like collaboration and benefits but protecting a cloud environment requires a lot of expertise. The traditional approach to security does very little in offsetting its risks.

What steps can you take as a company owner to safeguard your business against threats looking to do harm? 

Let’s try to understand the relevance of the cloud-based Web Application Firewall (WAF) addressing cloud security.

But First, What Is a Web Application Firewall?

In simple terms, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a hardware or software product that filters out malicious traffic from reaching computers and servers. It controls which domain web traffic comes from and how it is redirected across different ports so that certain information is not leaked to the wrong people.

An antivirus program helps to protect against unwanted programs and even some viruses, and a firewall is like an extra layer of security as it keeps attackers or external threats from getting access to your system in the first place.

Firewalls’ security products are named after the literal function they perform in keeping a structure safe – in this case, your computer – by preventing “flames” of malicious attacks from spreading to it.

And What Is a Cloud-Based Firewall?

Cloud firewalls allow only selected traffic to private networks through a cloud application, infrastructure, and/or platform to protect them from malicious attacks or intrusions by unauthorized users.

Cloud-based firewalls are used to improve cloud security architecture. When employees have access to information, workloads, and applications globally, cloud firewalls provide a useful layer of protection for all devices by acting as a barrier between the Internet and your network.

Cloud Vulnerabilities to Be Aware Of

Cloud exposure can take place due to a variety of reasons. Whether it is because of weak RDP (Revised Data Protocol) security, misconfiguration of protocols, or if that is about shadow IT use, or just for want of poor management, there are a lot of complexities involved in the process.

Pay-Now-Or-Get-Breached Ransomware Threats – In addition to demanding a ransom to decrypt data, extortionists can later threaten to leak sensitive information if extra payment is not made.

Within an organization’s ecosystem, it is possible to mitigate common cybersecurity risks by means of a firewall, employee training, and strict policy.

Traditional Firewall Security Is Not Enough

The risk factors for supplying aggregated statistics about business risks seem to have changed this year, with ransomware, third-party flaws, phishing attacks, and undetected security gaps supplanting human error as the leading cause of data breaches.

There are lots of threats to be protected against. Cloud applications are protected by security; however, the level of protection may not meet a certain enterprise’s requirements.

When used as a front-line security control, Cloud WAF acts as an extra set of eyes and ears protecting against threats, including malicious traffic such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting (XSS) exploits.

As a company that relies on cloud technology for communication passage through data, it’s evident that in today’s world of fast-paced advancements, it is necessary to ensure the safety and integrity of all the information stored on these databases.

The reason is basic.

As you read this, cybercriminals are looking for ways inside information security systems with malicious intent.

How Do Cloud Web Application Firewalls Help?

1. No Hassle Deployment- One of the reasons why cloud firewalls are becoming so popular right now is that they can be deployed (with security policies to monitor and control traffic) much quicker than traditional firewalls, which is a huge benefit for busy companies.
2. Real-time Updates: Cloud web application firewall can safeguard advanced and latest threat filtering systems with automatic updates in a real-time capacity.
3. Answer to DDoS Attacks: The best cloud-managed firewalls walk in tandem with DDoS mitigation strategies, monitor traffic, and prevent DDoS before it happens. 
4. Identity and Access Management: A cloud firewall helps ensure that your computer determines the difference between a malicious bot attack and human traffic. By verifying a digital identity to an advanced degree, users access the data and the network available to them.

How to Evaluate the Best Cloud-Managed Firewall for Your Business Environment?

The world of precise security of your cloud-hosted assets and workloads is fast-paced, and to be a successful business, one needs to stay at the tip of the spear.

An effective cloud firewall:

• Learns application logic
• Has global threat intel
• Automates detection policy creation
• Provides both network and application-based security

Likewise, the cloud-based web application firewall platform Indusface AppTrana WAF is constantly evolving to provide more excellent protection and up-to-the-minute threat intelligence.

Conclusion

The digital transformation that is making collaboration easier has also led to changes in traditional firewalls responsible for a company’s security. It clearly means that every company needs a combination of reliable equipment, software, and people to ensure it’s working at its best. Even companies that work exclusively in the cloud need protection from hackers seeking harm, and there are such malicious humans on the Internet.