Addressing Common Vulnerabilities and Mitigating Associated Risks to Data with a WAAP
Tags: webdev, beginners, security
Published: 2023-03-14 13:09:48

As the security risk that businesses are competing with continues to grow, cybersecurity experts are constantly iterating on previous defenses in order to construct more effective ways of preventing attacks. At present, security experts have an enormous range of solutions to select from. What started out with WAFs and Firewalls has quickly evolved into WAAPs and AI defenses.

Yet, despite this, every year breaks the previous record for the number of data breaches and security events. [Over 400 million individuals were impacted by a data breach](https://www.statista.com/statistics/273550/data-breaches-recorded-in-the-united-states-by-number-of-breaches-and-records-exposed/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20the%20number%20of,have%20one%20thing%20in%20common.) in 2022, with over 1800 cases being recorded. Without fully understanding the defenses that security experts have at their disposal, we’re unable to keep our data safe.

In this article, we’ll dive into WAAPs, exploring their common security gaps and pointing businesses toward ways of keeping their data safe.

**How WAAPs Have Gone Beyond WAFs**

A few years ago, the top-of-the-range quality for defending applications from attackers was a WAF (Web Application Firewall). These would monitor any traffic that was coming in and going out of an application, and block anything that looked potentially harmful. Administrators could set specific rules for their WAFs, helping to keep their applications and all the data they housed safe.

Since their development, experts have iterated this security solution into a new form, WAAPs (Web Application API Protection Platform), which provide an additional set of functions on top of what a baseline WAF can offer. The main additions here all relate to API protection. A WAAP helps businesses by providing API discovery, schema validation and analysis, and full API documentation. 

These additions help to defend businesses against DDoS attacks, code execution, and SQLi. As the world has moved toward online data architecture, especially in the form of cloud services, we have to deal with many more APIs and much more API traffic. Most of the time, with people working from home, we’re accessing APIs in order to read through sensitive data.

[A WAAP acts as a first line of defense](https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/web-application-and-api-protection-waap/) here, stopping unauthorized people from accessing that valuable data.

**Why Are WAAPs Significant When it Comes To Cybersecurity?**

As the cyber threat has continued to mount over the past few years, the rudimentary tools and systems that we had in place as primary defenses are no longer enough. Attacks don’t fit into simple categories that we were once faced with, with smarter and more complicated attack vectors bringing a whole new set of challenges.

At present, and with the speed with which technology is advancing, we need defense systems that can evolve with our businesses. There are a number of areas where traditional defenses like intrusion detection, WAFs, and general firewalls just don’t cut it anymore:

- **The Rise of TLS** - TLS encryption is a security layer that is used in the vast majority of all internet communications. It is a cryptographic protocol that keeps a user’s connection secure and stops anyone from eavesdropping on them while browsing. TLS is a revolution in terms of internet security, but also makes it nearly impossible to detect malicious content as the traffic is encrypted. Yet, WAAP solutions are able to inspect all TLS connections, breaking them down and ensuring that there is no malicious content hiding within the traffic. 

- **Web Application Threats Change** - Where security experts once would have blocked a specific signature when malicious content was detected, this is a strategy that cannot scale to meet the rising threat. As attackers can simply change their threat method, medium, and signature, this system is too slow for effectively dealing with most cyber threats. To face this, WAAPs are using AI and ML tools to be able to continuously develop, staying one step ahead of attackers.

- **The Movement to Cloud** - WAFs are quickly falling out of favor because cloud hosting is now much more popular. By being able to reduce latency, increase server size, and have data available without local hosting, businesses have turned to cloud computing en masse. 

WAAP, by offering services that help to protect both web applications and APIs from attacks, has rapidly become the go-to option for businesses that are looking to keep their data safe.

**The New Generation of Data Protection and Security**

With the whole host of company, public, and financial data that businesses hold within their web applications and online servers, WAAP services are now integral to modern cybersecurity. Beyond covering the gaps mentioned above that other security services leave open, WAAP has become a powerful tool in the cybersecurity department’s arsenal. WAAP is especially good at covering the following areas:

- **Malicious Bots** - WAAP solutions can find, locate, and then isolate suspicious traffic, ensuring that bots cannot reach the applications they intend to.

- **DDoS Attacks** - Distributed Denial of Service attacks are common against APIs and web applications. By providing a scalable system that experts can use to defend against DDoS, WAAP solutions have proven themself as a superior defense tool.

- **Microservice Protection** - WAAP solutions use context and set perimeters to change their approach to security. By outlining clear rules that a microservice needs, WAAPs can be used as a much more specific form of security barrier.

- **Account Hijacking** - By detecting unauthorized access using authentication APIs, WAAP can shut down users that shouldn’t be on the system

Especially considering that [83% of web traffic comes through APIs](https://apisecurity.io/issue-17-83-web-traffic-apis-query-params-bad-secrets/#:~:text=Tools-,Issue%2017%3A%2083%20percent%20of%20web%20traffic%20is%20API%2C%20and,parameters%20are%20bad%20for%20secrets), ensuring that your business has this fully covered with a WAAP should be at the top of your to-do list.

**Final Thoughts**

WAAP solutions are the next step toward a safer online space. For businesses that are looking to keep their data secure, this solution is currently one of the very best that we have available. As an evolution of the standard WAF, WAAP is continually improving upon itself in order to deliver a flawless security experience.

While security will continue to iterate and evolve, this is currently one of the leading tools we can use to keep business and individual data safe.