WAF SaaS
WAF SaaS is in Early Availability. If you wish to join the Early Availability program and be able to see and use WAF SaaS configuration - contact us through your local Check Point team.
Overview
CloudGuard WAF SaaS provides all of CloudGuard WAF's security capabilities, with the ease of avoiding the need for a complex deployment. In addition, it provides another layer of security with advanced DDoS protection and utilization of a CDN service for your protected assets.
DNS configuration of your domain is changed to route your site's traffic through WAF SaaS. WAF SaaS protects the site by inspecting the traffic, and routes it to the internal server. The SaaS service has a Reverse proxy function with CloudGuard WAF's security.
WAF SaaS does not support accepting traffic to a root domain.
i.e. the asset's URL can be defined to be "www.myapp.com" or "api.myapp.com", but it cannot be just "myapp.com"
End-to-End Encryption: Securing Your Data at Every Step
In today's digital landscape, data security and privacy are paramount. We understand the critical importance of protecting sensitive information as it traverses the internet. That's why we are proud to offer comprehensive end-to-end (E2E) encryption across our services.
Our robust encryption ensures that your data remains secure and private, from the moment it leaves the application client to the point it reaches you, our valued customer. The journey of your data begins when it is transmitted from the application client. It then send the data to our CDN it is decrypted and encrypted again and sent to the ALB where it is decrypted and encrypted again and sent to our WAF, after the WAF had performed its security inspection it sends the data to the application , again in encrypted communication.
CloudGuard WAF SaaS Points of Presence (PoPs)
When creating a account to manage your security, a data region was selected. Data Residency refers to the physical or geographical location where your data is stored and it also determines the region of Infinity Portal where your configuration and logs can be viewed and edited.
In WAF SaaS there are also Points of Presence (PoPs). PoPs are crucial for the performance and security of your web applications. They refer to the physical locations where our WAF agents are deployed, directly influencing your applications' security efficiency and response time.
CloudGuard WAF PoPs can be deployed in any AWS location worldwide, offering unparalleled flexibility. For optimal performance, it is recommended to deploy PoPs as close to your application server as possible. This proximity reduces latency, ensuring faster and more reliable protection against threats. Please note that we are using network assertion therefore the application users will have an accelerated connection to the PoP.
With CloudGuard WAF, you have the flexibility to create or delete PoPs as your needs evolve. Assets can be seamlessly moved from one PoP to another, allowing for a dynamic and adaptable security posture.
Prerequisites
Ownership of the DNS configuration for the protected domain.
Prepare an internal web address of the web site if none existed:
If your web server had a Reverse Proxy server in front of it, routing between the public domain of the site and an internal web server, then you already had an internal web address.
If the web server was publicly exposed directly, create and configure a second domain for it in preparation for the configuration of a Reverse Proxy before that web server. i.e. - if the website was exposed through "www.myapp.com" you will need a new domain, for example "internal.myapp.com", which routes to the same server in your DNS configuration.
Accessibility - You must be able to configure your internal web server to be accessible from the IP addresses of WAF SaaS. If you just added a new internal address it can be exposed publicly for the deployment stage purposes, but you must reduce its accessibility in the appropriate installation step after WAF SaaS has been configured. Following that step it should not be accessible publicly.
Approve usage of the PoP region from the supported options.
Installation
There are no real deployment instructions as WAF SaaS is deployed automatically.
However, for each domain in each of the assets, protected by a WAF SaaS in a specific region, you must perform the following 2 steps (possibly 3) and only afterwards will your traffic be secure.
Adding domains to an existing asset, or adding the WAF SaaS profile to protect an existing asset which wasn't protected by it until now, will also require completing the same steps before the newly added domains are protected.
If a domain needs to be edited, add the correct domain to the asset, complete the steps, and delete the incorrect domain.
Step 1: Prove ownership for each of your domains in each of your assets to be issued certificates
Browse to Policy->Profiles and select the WAF SaaS profile that was automatically created during the Asset creation wizard. You will see the domains that are pending actions.
Upon clicking on a domain you will see the first instruction - proving ownership of that domain. You will need to perform this action for each of your domains. For example, if you are protecting both www.myapp.com and api.myapp.com, you will need to prove ownership of each domain separately.
In your DNS configuration, where the current domain is configured, add a CNAME record with the name and value you can copy and paste from the WAF management.
Adding this DNS record allows our certificate management system to approve issuing certificates for your domain.
Step 2: Connect your domain to WAF SaaS
Once ownership of the domain is proved, a CNAME record value will be issued. This may take up to 30 minutes.
Once issued, change the existing DNS CNAME record for the domain you wish to protect and change its value to the copied string. Once the DNS records worldwide are updated, traffic will now pass through WAF SaaS and then be routed to your internal web server.
Step 3: Make sure your internal web server is accessible from WAF SaaS PoP IP addresses
During this step you will add IP addresses to the access list allowed by your internal web server, and you may also be required to remove IP addresses that are no longer needed.
Since DNS propagation of new configuration can take up to 72 hours, we recommend you will only add IP addresses as needed, but not remove any access from the web server until 72 hours have passed and you have tested your connectivity to the web site through WAF SaaS.
In each asset protected by WAF SaaS you configured the upstream URL for the Reverse Proxy function of WAF SaaS. Traffic will reach WAF SaaS through the web site's domain, and will be sent, after inspection, to the internal address.
You must configure that address to allow access from the IP addresses provided by the deployment form in CloudGuard WAF UI, and only from those addresses.
i.e. if the domain was publicly exposed until now, you must reduce accessibility and allow traffic from only those IP addresses. And if the domain was only accessible from a previously configured Reverse Proxy, you must add the IP addresses of WAF SaaS to the access list and consider removing irrelevant IP addresses of the previous Reverse Proxy.
Step 4: Test access to your site
After completing all previous steps, make sure access to your site exists.
Please note that changing DNS records can take up to 72 hours to propagate worldwide, although it typically takes a few hours.
Make sure you have not left a publicly exposed domain in your previous environment!
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