Kubernetes Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a security measure aimed at safeguarding applications deployed on Kubernetes clusters from a variety of web-related threats and vulnerabilities. It accomplishes this by filtering, monitoring, and blocking harmful HTTP traffic before it reaches the application backend.
A Kubernetes WAF typically incorporates the following:
In addition to these primary features, advanced Kubernetes WAF offerings may also include extra capabilities, like API protection, bot management, DDoS mitigation, and integration with other security tools, such as intrusion prevention systems (IPS) or security information and event management (SIEM) platforms.
This is part of a series of articles about Kubernetes security.
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As organizations adopt cloud-native technologies, safeguarding their applications has emerged as a top concern. With the growing adoption of Kubernetes as the preferred container orchestration platform, it is critical to guarantee the protection of your deployments from potential threats.
Integrating a Web Application Firewall (WAF) in your Kubernetes environment can improve your security posture by:
Learn more in our detailed Kubernetes firewall guide
Ingress Controller Integrated WAFs are Web Application Firewalls that are built into or configured to work seamlessly with popular Kubernetes ingress controllers, such as NGINX and HAProxy. Ingress controllers in Kubernetes manage external access to services running within a cluster. By integrating a WAF with an ingress controller, it provides an additional layer of security, filtering, and monitoring HTTP traffic before it reaches the services running within the cluster.
In this type of WAF solution, the ingress controller handles incoming traffic and routes it to the appropriate services while applying WAF rules to inspect and filter potentially malicious requests. This approach ensures that web application security is enforced at the entry point of the cluster, providing a unified security barrier for all applications.
Ingress Controller Integrated WAFs are easy to manage, as they leverage Kubernetes-native tools and configurations for deployment and policy management. However, they may be limited in terms of advanced security features and customization options.
Standalone WAF solutions are independent tools or services that can be deployed within a Kubernetes environment to provide comprehensive protection for web applications. These WAFs are separate from ingress controllers and can be deployed as sidecar containers alongside application containers or as standalone services within the cluster. Standalone WAF solutions offer greater flexibility in terms of configuration and rule customization, allowing organizations to tailor the WAF to their specific security requirements.
This type of WAF solution may require additional effort to integrate with the existing Kubernetes infrastructure, but it often provides more advanced security features, such as machine learning-based threat detection, bot management, and API security.
Cloud-native WAF solutions are offered by cloud providers and are designed specifically for Kubernetes environments. These managed WAF solutions simplify the deployment and management of a WAF in a Kubernetes cluster, often integrating with the cloud provider’s other security offerings for a more comprehensive security solution. Cloud-native WAFs are built to work seamlessly with the cloud provider’s Kubernetes services, ensuring smooth integration and ease of management.
These WAF solutions are designed to be highly scalable, automatically adjusting to the size and needs of your Kubernetes environment. Additionally, they often come with built-in features such as monitoring, logging, and security analytics.
Related content: Read our guide to cloud firewalls
Container-native WAF solutions are designed specifically for containerized environments, providing protection for containerized applications by monitoring and filtering traffic between containers within a Kubernetes cluster. These WAF solutions are built with containerization in mind and offer security features tailored to the unique challenges of containerized environments.
This type of WAF solution focuses on securing communications between containers and services, ensuring that malicious traffic is blocked before it reaches application components. Container-native WAFs may offer additional features such as runtime security, vulnerability scanning, and compliance monitoring.
To choose the most suitable Web Application Firewall (WAF) solution for your Kubernetes cluster, consider various factors that ensure both the security and performance of your applications. Here are some key aspects to keep in mind:
Calico’s workload-centric WAF enables users to implement policies at the workload level to protect applications from malicious lateral movement within the cluster as well as external communication over the internet. Calico WAF works across any Kubernetes-based platforms, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments, allowing the user to:
In addition to protecting against application-layer attacks, any blocked HTTP requests are logged and made available in Elasticsearch for review. Calico WAF allows users to trigger alerts based on these logs.
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