F5 Networks Configuring BIG-IP Advanced WAF: Web Application Firewall

Description

Overview:

In this 4 day course, students are provided with a functional understanding of how to deploy, tune, and operate F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall to protect their web applications from HTTP-based attacks. The course includes lecture, hands-on labs, and discussion about different F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall tools for detecting and mitigating threats from multiple attack vectors such web scraping, Layer 7 Denial of Service, brute force, bots, code injection, and zero day exploits.

Prerequisite(s):

Administering BIG-IP; basic familiarity with HTTP, HTML and XML; basic web application and security concepts.

Audience:

This course is intended for security and network administrators who will be responsible for the installation, deployment, tuning, and day-to-day maintenance of the F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall.

Outline:

Lesson 1: Setting Up the BIG-IP System

• Introducing the BIG-IP System
• Initially Setting Up the BIG-IP System
• Archiving the BIG-IP System Configuration
• Leveraging F5 Support Resources and Tools

Lesson 2: Traffic Processing with BIG-IP

• Identifying BIG-IP Traffic Processing Objects
• Understanding Profiles
• Overview of Local Traffic Policies
• Visualizing the HTTP Request Flow

Lesson 3: Web Application Concepts

• Overview of Web Application Request Processing
• Web Application Firewall: Layer 7 Protection
• F5 Advanced WAF Layer 7 Security Checks
• Overview of Web Communication Elements
• Overview of the HTTP Request Structure
• Examining HTTP Responses
• How F5 Advanced WAF Parses File Types, URLs, and Parameters
• Using the Fiddler HTTP Proxy

Lesson 4: Common Web Application Vulnerabilities

• A Taxonomy of Attacks: The Threat Landscape
• Common Exploits Against Web Applications

Lesson 5: Security Policy Deployment

• Defining Learning
• Comparing Positive and Negative Security Models
• The Deployment Workflow
• Assigning Policy to Virtual Server
• Deployment Workflow: Using Advanced Settings
• Configure Server Technologies
• Defining Attack Signatures
• Viewing Requests
• Security Checks Offered by Rapid Deployment

Lesson 6: Policy Tuning and Violations

• Post-Deployment Traffic Processing
• How Violations are Categorized
• Violation Rating: A Threat Scale
• Defining Staging and Enforcement
• Defining Enforcement Mode
• Defining the Enforcement Readiness Period
• Reviewing the Definition of Learning
• Defining Learning Suggestions
• Choosing Automatic or Manual Learning
• Defining the Learn, Alarm and Block Settings
• Interpreting the Enforcement Readiness Summary
• Configuring the Blocking Response Page

Lesson 7: Attack Signatures & Threat Campaigns

• Defining Attack Signatures
• Attack Signature Basics
• Creating User-Defined Attack Signatures
• Defining Simple and Advanced Edit Modes
• Defining Attack Signature Sets
• Defining Attack Signature Pools
• Understanding Attack Signatures and Staging
• Updating Attack Signatures
• Defining Threat Campaigns
• Deploying Threat Campaigns

Lesson 8: Positive Security Policy Building

• Defining and Learning Security Policy Components
• Defining the Wildcard
• Defining the Entity Lifecycle
• Choosing the Learning Scheme
• How to Learn: Never (Wildcard Only)
• How to Learn: Always
• How to Learn: Selective
• Reviewing the Enforcement Readiness Period: Entities
• Viewing Learning Suggestions and Staging Status
• Violations Without Learning Suggestions
• Defining the Learning Score
• Defining Trusted and Untrusted IP Addresses
• How to Learn: Compact

Lesson 9: Cookies and Other Headers

• F5 Advanced WAF Cookies: What to Enforce
• Defining Allowed and Enforced Cookies
• Configuring Security Processing on HTTP headers

Lesson 10: Visual Reporting and Logging

• Viewing Application Security Summary Data
• Reporting: Build Your Own View
• Reporting: Chart based on filters
• Brute Force and Web Scraping Statistics
• Viewing Resource Reports
• PCI Compliance: PCI-DSS 3.0
• Analyzing Requests
• Local Logging Facilities and Destinations
• Viewing Logs in the Configuration Utility
• Defining the Logging Profile
• Configuring Response Logging

Lesson 11: Lab Project 1

Lesson 12: Advanced Parameter Handling

• Defining Parameter Types
• Defining Static Parameters
• Defining Dynamic Parameters
• Defining Parameter Levels
• Other Parameter Considerations

Lesson 13: Automatic Policy Building

• Overview of Automatic Policy Building
• Defining Templates Which Automate Learning
• Defining Policy Loosening
• Defining Policy Tightening
• Defining Learning Speed: Traffic Sampling
• Defining Track Site Changes

Lesson 14: Web Application Vulnerability Scanner Integration

• Integrating Scanner Output
• Importing Vulnerabilities
• Resolving Vulnerabilities
• Using the Generic XML Scanner XSD file

Lesson 15: Deploying Layered Policies

• Defining a Parent Policy
• Defining Inheritance
• Parent Policy Deployment Use Cases

Lesson 16: Login Enforcement and Brute Force Mitigation

• Defining Login Pages for Flow Control
• Configuring Automatic Detection of Login Pages
• Defining Session Tracking
• Brute Force Protection Configuration
• Source-Based Brute Force Mitigations
• Defining Credentials Stuffing
• Mitigating Credentials Stuffing

Lesson 17: Reconnaissance with Session Tracking

• Defining Session Tracking
• Configuring Actions Upon Violation Detection

Lesson 18: Layer 7 DoS Mitigation

• Defining Denial of Service Attacks
• Defining the DoS Protection Profile
• Overview of TPS-based DoS Protection
• Creating a DoS Logging Profile
• Applying TPS Mitigations
• Defining Behavioral and Stress-Based Detection

Lesson 19: Advanced Bot Protection

• Classifying Clients with the Bot Defense Profile
• Defining Bot Signatures
• Defining Proactive Bot Defense
• Defining Behavioral and Stress-Based Detection
• Defining Behavioral DoS Mitigation

Lesson 20: Form Encryption using DataSafe

• Targeting Elements of Application Delivery
• Exploiting the Document Object Model
• Protecting Applications Using DataSafe
• The Order of Operations for URL Classification

Lesson 21: Review and Final Labs