AWS WAF Reviews

We primarily use the solution for load balancing. 

We have some microsites exposed through the AWS cloud. These are some sort of pilot and we are using WAF to learn how this new product fits with us, and are mostly in the testing phase with a limited impact application. We are obviously not migrating core applications or those which have a significant impact on availability or on integrity and confidentiality. Mostly we have it on microsites where we don't see a significant risk, and it is more of a learning exercise for us.

The most important aspect for us is that AWS WAF is easy to deploy. The ease of implementation, ease of management, and flexibility are great. We like the potential for pay as you grow as you have instant deployment, infrastructure as a code, or any other automation tools that can leverage these deployments. The most important thing for us is that it stays flexible and scalable. That is true not only with WAF but with all the cloud services where you can provision any product in minutes. 

With the cloud, you have these integrated tools that provide a single glass pane. 

You have automation, ease of export, or ease of seeing the logs and exporting to a SIEM; these aspects are also great. The agility is great for us in terms of cloud services in general.

Usually, if we're talking about standard WAF, this is easy to deploy and is good at protecting low to medium applications.

As of now, regarding WAF, I'm not sure what the minuses or pluses are. You have the native WAF, which you can deploy directly on the load balancer. However, you also have that store where you can actually deploy some other vendors' specifics. At this point, feature-wise, I don't see anything lacking, more or less. Obviously, if we want to migrate, which is not yet the case, there might be a significant impact.

For uniformity, AWS has a well-accepted framework. However, it'll be better for us if we could have some more documented guidelines on how the specific business should be structured and the roles that the cloud recommends. If every company is building its own framework based on their experience or their past experience, this might be subjective, and it'll end up with each company having its own framework, which can be good. However, it'll be better to have a standardized baseline that every company could build on. 

We've been using the solution for more than a year at this point. 

You have multiple availability zones and regions. The availability or durability is not something that we need to concern ourselves with very much here. Regarding the availability, I don't think this is something that the average company could match. They have a lot of availability zones, redundancy, and all the other things like that.

It's scalable. Mostly, what I would look into is having cloud resiliency in the sense that we want multiple vendors, so if something happens with AWS, you'll need some sort of strategy and you'll need some other vendor to provide you with similar services. 

We have a number of users per application. It's hard to quantify how many users are on the solution in general. 

For us, it's a bit of a different model where we have services provided by one central team or central entity. The others will have some sort of hub and spoke with the central entity providing or re-providing services to the other network units. The relationship with AWS is maintained by our central unit, and we somehow take services from the central unit and customize them per our needs. However, if we have some issues, this will be raised by the group. Issues may be resolved by AWS or an SME that works with us. 

In terms of the initial setup, from what I heard, it initially being a new technology, you want to deploy it in a correct manner. Therefore, it will need more diligence in the first deployment as security is not something you can learn and adjust. You need to make it right from day one in order to avoid breaches. However, after that, with infrastructure as a code and the automatic deployment, it's easier. You just create your setup, and you use the rules and go. You have network access to a security group, which provides you with very general filtering for problematic traffic. 

From my experience, the cloud provides everything we need; however, we still lack the knowledge and framework in terms of who is doing what, et cetera.

It's quite different between on-premise and cloud. In the cloud, DevOps is doing a lot of things. On-premise, you have someone from infrastructure, someone installing the OS, and someone doing the vulnerability and patch management.

Depending on how you deploy, the activities need to be revised. You need to have this framework to work in the cloud, and it's more of a challenge in company philosophy rather than technical capabilities. Companies can find it challenging to migrate to new tools. Sometimes existing teams need to be re-educated. 

We have multiple applications, so usually, it takes a while to refine the framework with the responsibility inside the company. It's to be optimized. However, in terms of actual deployment, security-wise, it takes some time to do the security checks, including the scanning and vulnerability asset inventory. It might take two or three months per application.

I definitely recommend not only AWS. I also recommend Azure as an option. We have the integration with Office and the entire portfolio. The cloud, in general, it's a new thing to consider. For example, you have this GDPR with data in Europe. However, in the case of most of the clouds, you can select your regions and you have some control. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

There are a huge amount of products. I'm not saying it's a bad or a good thing. However, it can be quite confusing. There are VPC, EC2, and other instances, and there are a lot of other services that you can use like Macie, where you can filter sensitive information. There are a lot of tools that require hands-on and new capabilities. For me, being at the beginning of this journey for cloud migration, I've been mostly quite happy with the results.

At the moment, it's just myself working with AWS WAF in my company, and our use case for it is normal, or what you would expect from a Web Application Firewall. That includes basic DoS blocking and malicious IP address blocking. It's not a big thing for us, and just takes care of our baseline security.

As a basic WAF, it's better than having nothing. So if you need something simple out of the box with default features, AWS WAF is good.

I think there's a lot wrong with AWS WAF. Here are the two main areas where I think it could be improved:

Blocking: We don't have much control over blocking, because the WAF is managed by AWS. What happens is that they will put down the rules on their side and we don't have proper visibility on that. So we'll have to track down the issues and see what is wrong or not. For example, with IP address blocking, it's difficult to find out which IPs are getting blocked. If we managed our own WAF completely, we wouldn't have this kind of problem. Right now, this aspect is half managed by us, and half managed by AWS. Because of this, I think it would be far more helpful to us if we went for our own tool instead.

Automation: As in, a lot of separate blocks if something goes wrong. For example, every company will have their own rules for automation, in terms of their goals for the product. Like, "I want my WAF to do this. I want my WAF to do that." But that's the kind of thing that I think we will only see when we do some POCs with our clients. 

I have been working with AWS WAF for around one year now. 

The performance has been good, even though it could be better. At any rate, the WAF has not caused any lag on our side.

It is scalable in my experience, but the lack of features doesn't take it very far in terms of actual usage. Eventually, customers will move away from it. If there's no one interested in managing the WAF, that's fine, then customers may keep using it. But for us, we are not planning to scale it out further.

AWS technical support is good.

Neutral

The setup is easy and nothing serious. You don't have to do a lot to get set up with it. Compared to other WAFs out there, I think AWS WAF is very simple, especially since most of it is managed by AWS.

We haven't needed anyone from AWS to help us with the deployment or implementation. It's all me at this point.

It's less cost and easy to setup

There are multiple other options which we could have gone for, but it depends on the budget, typically. I am especially interested in a WAF which has serious support for automation and more complex configuration options.

For people who don't have any WAF currently, and who just need something basic, it's not a bad idea to go with AWS WAF for starters. But if you are someone who is looking for a fully-fledged and self-managed WAF, you should look elsewhere for a better tool. You should certainly not stick with AWS WAF if you are serious about managing your security and mitigating your risks.

Overall, I would recommend AWS WAF to others, but only under the conditions I have mentioned. If you have the budget and the resources, however, go for something else.

I would rate AWS WAF a five out of ten.

We partner with many banks in India, and many partners use our portals to access their credit card or debit card information. So we use AWS WAF to protect our web application servers, app servers, and API servers from any malicious attacks which arise from the public internet. We also use AWS WAF for virtual patching of our servers to prevent any malicious requests from reaching the gateway to our internal systems.

I believe the most impressive features are integration and ease of use. The best part of AWS WAF is the cloud-native WAF integration. There aren't any hidden deployments or hidden infrastructure which we have to maintain to have AWS WAF. AWS maintains everything; all we have to do is click the button, and WAF will be activated. Any packet coming through the internet will be filtered through. 

It would be better if AWS WAF were more flexible. For example, if you take a third-party WAF like Imperva, they maintain the rule set, and these rule sets are constantly updated. They push security insights or new rules into the firewall. However, when it comes to AWS, it has a standard set of rules, and only those sets of rules in the application firewalls trigger alerts, block, and manage traffic.

Alternative WAFs have something like bot mitigation or bot control within the WAF, but you don't have such things in AWS WAF. I will say there could have been better bot mitigation plans, there could have been better dealer mitigation plans, and there could be better-updated rule sets for every security issue which arises in web applications.

In the next release, I would like to see if AWS WAF could take on DDoS protection within itself rather than being in a stand-alone solution like AWS Shield. I would also like a solution like a bot mitigation.

I have been using AWS WAF for a couple of years.

We haven't faced any issues over the past couple of years, so I believe AWS WAF is a stable product.

Since we are AWS-native, it's very scalable. It can handle almost any infrastructure running within the AWS public cloud. We have around 20 portals, and about 20 products usually use AWS WAF. I'll say that about 15 people use AWS WAF to manage the traffic and filter out security issues. Those people are security analysts, SOC analysts, and layer 1 network analysts.

In our business use case, sometimes it has triggered a false positive where it blocks some of our legitimate traffic. So we contact support to ask if this is legitimate and if we have to implement a new rule or if we have to allow such traffic and not mark it as a false positive. We have contacted them only for such occasions, and their support was really good.

On a scale from one to five, I would give technical support a four.

Positive

The initial setup was very simple. It's just a click of a button.

We already have web applications running on an AWS account, so it probably took about two minutes to implement this solution.

For our infrastructure, we probably pay around $16,000 per month for AWS WAF. Because alternative WAF solutions provide even more features, I think the AWS WAF is a bit pricey

I would say that I think it's easy to use, easy to deploy, and has all the basic WAF features. It has no advanced features like bot mitigation or DDoS protection built-in. If it had bot mitigation or advanced security filter patching features, I would probably give it a higher rating, like a nine.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give AWS WAF a seven.

We faced many potential threats, such as hackers flooding in the requests, so we started using AWS WAF to block those IPs and stop those attacks. If multiple IPs are trying to attack our product, we'll also use AWS WAF by selecting the endpoints the hackers were attacking and then blocking those endpoints. Our cybersecurity team primarily uses AWS WAF.

What I like best about AWS WAF is that it's a simple tool, so I could understand the basics of AWS WAF in two to three hours. From the start, I know its purpose and its use case.

AWS WAF also has documentation. It's a user-friendly tool, and it's easy to know how to block the IPs and endpoints.

AWS WAF would be better if it uses AI or machine learning to detect a potential attack or a potential IP that creates an attack even before it happens. I want AWS WAF to capture the IP and automatically write the rule to automate the entire process. I want an AI feature in AWS WAF in the future.

I only saw how AWS WAF works for seven months when the cybersecurity team used it, so my knowledge of the tool is basic. I'm not an expert on AWS WAF.

AWS WAF is a stable product.

I have yet to contact the AWS WAF technical support.

As the company is an Amazon customer, the company looked into what other Amazon services could prevent the attack and came across AWS WAF when the attack happened. The tool was also easy to use and could prevent attacks and safeguard the company's product, so the company decided to use AWS WAF.

The initial setup for AWS WAF was simple. It was a basic setup process, though I have no idea about deployment time.

AWS WAF costs $5 monthly plus $1 for the rule. It's cheap, cost-wise. It's worth the money.

AWS WAF has three users within the company.

If I were to advise you on using AWS WAF, I'd tell you first to understand how the attack is happening. For example, is it a single server attack or multiple servers or regions? It would be best to find out which target is being attacked. You need to know the basics before using AWS WAF. You also need to know the rules. You need to understand how to secure your endpoints. Users should have a basic understanding of AWS WAF and its purposes before using it. You need basic cybersecurity knowledge.

I'm new to cybersecurity, so AWS WAF is the first cybersecurity product I used and based on my experience and usage, it's a ten out of ten. AWS WAF is a user-friendly, on-point tool, and I could understand it easily.

My company is an Amazon customer.

It's more of an application security tool that we use to secure applications. 

AWS WAF is something that someone from a cloud background or cloud security background leverages. If they want to natively use a solution in the cloud, AWS WAF comes in handy. It's very useful for that, and the way we can fine-tune the WAF rules is also nice.

It's pretty much an AWS native service, so it's something that they improve year after year. They do continuous improvements on a year-by-year basis, so the product is really good. An improvement area would be that it's more of a manual effort when you have to enable rules. That's one of the downsides. If that can be done in an automated way, it would be great. That's a lagging feature currently.

It could also support multi-cloud integration where you can integrate with applications other than AWS applications. It would be a good feature or use case for this solution.

I've been using this solution for almost three to four years.

It's stable. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of stability.

It's scalable. We probably have more than a hundred users. It's pretty much being used by everyone, such as engineers, managers, etc. Everyone is into it.

We get good support. I'd rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

We didn't use any similar solution previously. In the future, we might use another solution, but for now, we are more into AWS WAF.

It's neither complex nor simple. It's somewhere in the middle. I'd rate it a six out of ten in terms of the ease of the setup.

It's a cloud solution, and we have a multi-cloud scenario. We are pretty much using all four clouds: Amazon, Azure, AWS, and Oracle. It's a mix-and-match or hybrid.

In terms of maintenance, there would be a team of engineers to maintain it.

Its price is fair. There is a very fair amount that they charge.

It has a pay-as-you-go model, so it pretty much depends on how much a user uses it. As per the cloud norms, the more you use, the more you pay. I would rate it a five out of ten in terms of pricing.

Overall, I'd rate it a seven out of ten because it's not automated and it's a bit complicated to implement or deploy the solution.

We use AWS WAF to prevent cyberattacks, such as SQL Injection attacks and cross-site scripting attacks. The end users' traffic has more threats and the web application gives good support.

The most valuable features of AWS WAF are its cloud-native and on-demand.

Any customer can leverage AWS WAF immediately, it has a basic set of rules that are available.

The solution could improve by having better rules, they are very basic at the moment. There are more attacks coming and we have to use third-party solutions, such as FIA. The features are not sufficient to prevent all the attacks, such as DDoS. Overall the solution should be more secure.

I have been using AWS WAF for approximately four years.

This is a very stable solution.

AWS WAF is scalable.

We have approximately five customers using this solution.

The technical support is very good. They are responsive and knowledgeable, they have always come back with a resolution or a workaround to help us.

The initial setup took approximately 15 mins, it is easy.

We have a team that does the support for the solution.

AWS WAF is pay-as-you-go, I only pay for what I'm using. There is no subscription or any payment upfront, I can terminate use at any time. Which is an advantage.

The first version of AWS WAF was not mature but the second version is very mature.

I would recommend this solution to others because instead of choosing a third-party solution which will take time, and you will have to be in negotiations. It is good to start with AWS WAF for their minimal primary security firewall to save their workload. AWS WAF is available on-demand from day one.

I rate AWS WAF a seven out of ten.

While I cannot say for certain, I believe that we are using the latest version. 

I like the scalability, as it provides platform, infrastructure and software as a service. These are the best features. When it comes to the API Gateway, such as Amazon Web Application Framework, the web application will be protected by all industry standard security aspects. We are talking about encryption, firewalls, SSL and TLS. Basically, all web exploit policies and rules will be applied, so that one's web or mobile app can be highly secured.

In terms of hosting the instances, the solution takes care of all necessary scaling to ensure that the application load is balanced. The horizontal or vertical scaling can be automatically removed. As such, AWS provides many services and features. 

The pricing should be more affordable, especially as it pertains to small clients. 

While the complexity of the installation can vary from one service to another, overall, I would say that it and the configuration and navigation are somewhat complex. These could stand improvement and bring down my rating of the product. 

Customer support should also be improved. 

I have been using AWS WAF for around two years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

While it can vary according to the service involved, installation, configuration and navigation are, broadly speaking, complex. 

The solution could be more cost-efficient for small customers. 

The solution may be expensive for smaller customers and vendors, although it would be recommended for large ones who can afford it. 

Our organization has only a few years, consisting of the internal team, who are making use of the solution. 

I rate AWS WAF as a six out of ten. 

We use this solution to protect our web applications against common vulnerabilities. The CDN component is also quite powerful. We use this solution alongside Azure WAF.

The simple configuration and the scalability have been most valuable. We are able to scale across all of our different AWS instances.

This solution could be improved if the configuration steps were more specific to WAF, compared to other cloud services. 

I have been using this solution for two years. 

This is a stable solution. We rely on AWS's other cloud services and we've never experienced any stability issues. 

This is a scalable solution. 

Our support experience has been quite good. 

Neutral

The main reason we switched from using CloudFlare to AWS is to have a native offering because all of our cloud solutions are on AWS. This made it simpler compared to using a third party and easier to reroute traffic.

It depends on your AWS configuration, but what we've experienced is that the rule policy configuration is really straightforward. It took a couple of weeks. 

We had in-house expertise.

We have a medium amount of traffic per month and the cost is in the hundreds rather than in the thousands. I don't know the exact number.

I would advise others to ensure they understand what can be done internally and then what you need expertise for externally. If you have the expertise internally, it can be easily configured. Keep the SIEM configuration as simple as possible, rather than trying to modify and configure too many things.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.