Why focus on a secure web gateway? What benefits can using this tool give to your organization? If you want to know, scroll below.
Why Focus On a Secure Web Gateway?
Today, the world we are living in is an unpredictable place. Humankind is facing new threats from emerging technologies. And more people are being affected by cybercrimes than ever before. It is a difficult task for organizations to protect their business from the many new risks of cybercrimes.
So, a secure web gateway (SWG) can help you:
Protect Your Web Applications
A secure web gateway is a security tool that inspects HTTP(S) traffic that passes through it for compliance with an organization’s security policies. It helps create a secure environment for web applications, both internal and external, that are deployed on the organization’s network.
Moreover, it also helps protect against attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, SQL injection, and malware injection attacks.
Secure Your Network Traffic
SWG is a network security tool that inspects all inbound and outbound network traffic for compliance with an organization’s security policies. It makes sure there are no unauthorized connections or activities originating from or destined for the organization’s network through the use of various techniques. Such as:
- stateful packet inspection (SPI),
- protocol anomaly detection,
- deep packet inspection (DPI),
- application protocol detection and protection,
- HTTP scanning, and
- SSL scanning.
Protect Your Users’ Sensitive Data
SWG is an application security tool that helps detect, monitor, control, and audit access to sensitive data by users of your organization’s web applications. It also makes sure that any access to sensitive data is authorized. And that it is in compliance with your security policies.
This can be done by identifying risky parameters in URL requests. Such as:
- session IDs, cookies, forms variables, headers, and query strings;
- scanning request parameters for malicious code;
- filtering request content based on your predefined rules;
- logging all access requests to sensitive resources;
- preventing cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks by filtering request content based on your predefined rules; and
- prevent SQL injection attacks by filtering request content based on your predefined rules.
Enforce Authentication & Authorization Controls
SWG is an identity assurance tool that supports authentication mechanisms. Such as:
- single sign-on (SSO),
- multi-factor authentication (MFA),
- certificate-based authentication,
- SAML2 Web SSO/IdPs, etc.,
And then, it enforces authorization controls such as role-based security controls (roles mapped to groups), and more. Thus, this web security gateway can be used to enforce access controls and user authentication.
Protect Web Applications From Malware Attacks
SWG is an application protection tool that protects web applications from malware attacks, such as:
- scanning for malware in the HTTP traffic;
- scanning for malware in the SSL traffic;
- filtering attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in web applications; and
- scanning for malicious code in the request and response content.
Focus On a Secure Web Gateway Today
In conclusion, we can safely say that a secure web gateway is a network security tool that helps protect your business from threats that can originate from the web applications you use. So, it is a wise move to focus on this tool today.