What is the Secure Web Gateway vs WAF Difference? How it can provide security for websites?
Secure Web Gateway vs WAF Difference
Secure Web Gateway is a web application firewall (WAF) software designed to filter malicious attacks, These threats are such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other attacks. On the other hand, Web application firewalls (WAF) are a type of firewall that inspects the traffic between a web application and its users and can block or modify requests that seem harmful.
Though the name is the same both don’t have many similarities. So, the one who can understand the differences can choose the right one for their business. It will help them in securing their website or web application.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) is software or hardware that helps in preventing malicious attacks on websites. They are mostly used by companies that run online services. This is where there is a need for security against various types of cyberattacks.
It depends on your requirement whether you want to choose WAF or not. It is suggested to choose both WAF and SSL for your website for complete protection against all kinds of cyber attacks. Secure Web Gateway is an SSL based solution to secure websites from all types of cyber-attacks.
Secure Web Gateway and WAF Advantages
SSL can encrypt data sent from your web browser to the server so that no one can access your data without proper authorization. No one can hack into your data while it is transferring over the wire. Because it is heavily encrypted using one-way encryption keys. This is with the private key on the server side and the public key on the client side to decrypt data.
Moreover, you also need a certificate authority certificate file to install an SSL certificate on a secure web gateway. This you have purchased your SSL certificate from any trusted CA company like Comodo, Digicert, Symantec, etc. Also, Web Application Firewalls are software or hardware that helps in preventing malicious attacks on websites.
They are mostly used by companies that run online services, where there is a need for security against various types of cyberattacks. The main task of a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is to scan the HTTP requests. This comes to a Web Server and blocks any request that contains malicious code or seems suspicious.
The WAF will also be able to detect any abnormal behavior from the client side and block it before it can cause damage. Unlike Secure Web Gateway, Web Application Firewall is an SSL-based solution to secure websites from all types of cyber-attacks. These are hacking, malware, spamming, and many more.
Conclusion
It depends on your requirement whether you want to choose WAF or not. You can choose both WAF and SSL for your website for complete protection against all kinds of cyber attacks. Secure Web Gateway can protect your website from all types of cyber attacks.
It also has advantages over other security layer solutions like IDS/IPS and antivirus. But, there are some disadvantages to using WAF as well. Since some of the attack methods are so sophisticated and new that they can bypass the WAFs with their unique techniques.
This can protect you against hacking, malware, and spamming. But web application firewall will not protect your website from hacking only but it will secure your website from all types of threats.