AWS Security Blog

Deploying defense in depth using AWS Managed Rules for AWS WAF (part 2)

In this post, I show you how to use recent enhancements in AWS WAF to manage a multi-layer web application security enforcement policy. These enhancements will help you to maintain and deploy web application firewall configurations across deployment stages and across different types of applications.

In part 1 of this post I describe the technologies and methods that you can use to build and manage defense in depth for your network. In part 2, I will show you how to use those tools to build your defense in depth using AWS Managed Rules as the starting point and how it can be used for optimal effectiveness

Managing policies for multiple environments can be done with minimal administrative overhead and can now be part of a deployment pipeline where you programmatically enforce policies for broad edge network policy enforcements and protect production workloads without compromising on development speed or safety.

Building robust security policy enforcement relies on a layered approach and the same applies to securing your web applications. Having edge policies, application policies, and even private or internal policy enforcement layers adds to the visibility of communication requests as well as unified policy enforcement.

Using a layered AWS WAF deployment, such as is deployed by the procedure that follows, gives you greater flexibility in the amount of rules you can use and the option to standardize edge policies and production policies. This lets you test and develop new applications without comprising the production environments.

In the following example, the application load balancer is in us-east-1. To create a web ACL for Amazon CloudFront you need to deploy the stack in us-east-1. The Amazon-CloudFront-Application-Load-Balancer-AMR.yml template can create both web ACLs in this scenario.

Note: If you’re using CloudFront and hosting the origin in us-east-1, you only need to maintain one stack. If your origin is in another region, you need to deploy a stack in us-east-1 for CloudFront web ACLs and another in the region where your application load balancer is. That scenario isn’t covered in the following procedure. None of the underlying infrastructure would be deployed with the example AWS CloudFromation templates provided. Only the AWS WAF configurations would be deployed using the example templates.

Solution overview

The following diagram illustrates the traffic flow where traffic comes in via CloudFront and serves the traffic to the backend load balancers. Both CloudFront and the load balancers support AWS WAF. This is where dedicated web security policies can be enforced to build out a defense-in-depth, multi layered policy enforcement.
 

Figure 1: Defense in depth deployment on AWS WAF

Figure 1: Defense in depth deployment on AWS WAF

Creating AWS Managed Rule web ACLs

During this process we create two web ACLs that are designed for policy enforcement for two dedicated layers. The process won’t deploy the required infrastructure, such as the CloudFront distribution or application load balancers. This example template deploys a single stack in us-east-1 where the CloudFront origin load balancer is located.

To create AWS Managed Rule web ACLs

  1. Download the Amazon-CloudFront-Application-Load-Balancer-AMR.yml template.
  2. Open the AWS Management Console and select the region where the origin application load balancer is deployed. The Amazon-CloudFront-Application-Load-Balancer-AMR.yml template that you downloaded deploys both web ACLs for CloudFront and the application load balancer.
     
    Figure 2: Select a region from the console

    Figure 2: Select a region from the console

  3. Under Find Services enter AWS CloudFormation and select Enter.
     
    Figure 3: Find and select AWS CloudFormation

    Figure 3: Find and select AWS CloudFormation

  4. Select Create stack.
     
    Figure 4: Create stack

    Figure 4: Create stack

  5. Select a template file for the stack.
    1. In the Create stack window, select Template is ready and Upload a template file.
    2. Under Upload a template file, select Choose file and select the Amazon-CloudFront-Application-Load-Balancer-AMR.yml example AWS CloudFormation template you downloaded earlier.
    3. Choose Next.

    Figure 5: Prepare and choose a template

    Figure 5: Prepare and choose a template

  6. Add stack details.
    1. Enter a name for the stack in Stack name.
    2. Enter a name for the Edge Network AWS WAF WebACL and for the Public Layer AWS WAF WebACL.
    3. Set a rate-limit for HTTP GET requests in HTTP Get Flood Protection (this rate is applied per IP address over a 5 minute period).
    4. Set a rate limit for HTTP POST requests in HTTP Post Flood Protection.
    5. Use the Login URL to apply the limit to a targeted login page. If you want to rate-limit all HTTP POST requests, leave the login URL section blank.

    Figure 6: Set stack details

    Figure 6: Set stack details

  7. By default, all the rules within the rule-sets are in action override (count mode). This does not include the rate based rules. If you want to deploy selected rules in a block, remove them from the pre-populated list by highlighting and deleting them. It’s best practice to evaluate firewall rules before changing them from count to block mode. Choose Next to move to the next step.
     
    Figure 7: Default managed rules options

    Figure 7: Default managed rules options

  8. Here you can add tags to apply to the resources in the stack that these rules will be deployed to. Tagging is a recommended best practice as it enables you to add metadata information to resources during the creation. For more information on tagging please see the Tagging AWS resources documentation. Then choose Next. On the following page choose Create stack.
     
    Figure 8: Add tags

    Figure 8: Add tags

  9. Wait until the stack has been deployed. When deployment is complete, the status of the stack will change to CREATE_COMPLETE.
     
    Figure 9: Stack deployment status

    Figure 9: Stack deployment status

Associating the web ACLs to resources

During this process we associate the two newly created web ACLs to the corresponding infrastructure resources. In this example, it would be the CloudFront distribution and its origin load balancer which should have been created prior.

To associate the web ACLs to resources

  1. In the console search for and select WAF & Shield.
     
    Figure 10: Select WAF & Shield

    Figure 10: Select WAF & Shield

  2. Select Web ACLs from the list on the left.
     
    Figure 11: Select Web ACLs

    Figure 11: Select Web ACLs

  3. Select Global (CloudFront) from the drop down list at the top of the page. Choose the Edge-Network-Layer-WebACL name that you created in step 6 of the previous procedure (Creating AWS Managed Rule web ACLs).
     
    Figure 12: Select the web ACL

    Figure 12: Select the web ACL

  4. Next select Associated AWS and then choose Add AWS resources.
     
    Figure 13: Add AWS resources

    Figure 13: Add AWS resources

  5. Select the CloudFront distribution you want to protect. Choose Add.
     
    Figure 14: Select the CloudFront distribution to protect

    Figure 14: Select the CloudFront distribution to protect

  6. Select the region the application load balancer is deployed in—this example is us-east-1—and then repeat the same association process as in steps by selecting Web ACLs and now associating the Application Load Balancer similar to steps 3 and 4 above. However, this time, select the application load balancer that serves as the CloudFront Distribution origin. Select US East (N. Virginia) from the drop-down list at the top of the page. Choose the Public-Application-Layer-WebACL name that you created in step 6 of the previous procedure (Creating AWS Managed Rule web ACLs).
     
    Figure 15: Application layer Web ACL association

    Figure 15: Application layer Web ACL association

Conclusion

Using AWS WAF to manage a multi-layer web application security enforcement policy you are able to build defense in depth stack for each specific web application. The configuration will help you to maintain and deploy web application firewall configurations across deployment stages and across different types of applications. Now with AWS Managed Rules this has enabled customers to make use of prebuild rule sets that can easily be deployed to create a layered defense that will fit into customers web application deployment pipelines. For customers that would like to centrally manage and control WAF in their AWS Organization, consider AWS Firewall Manager.

The AWS CloudFormation templates used in this procedure are in this GitHub repository.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, start a new thread on the AWS WAF forum or contact AWS Support.

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Author

Daniel Cisco Swart

The AWS Managed Rules was something Daniel worked on personally over a number of years during his time with the AWS Threat Research Team. Currently Daniel is working with Security competency technology partners from the AWS Partner Network as a Partner Solutions Architect enabling customer success through technical collaboration with AWS’s top security partners.