Radware Cloud WAF

My use cases for Radware Cloud WAF Service are basically engaged whenever we have a huge amount of attacks on our on-prem solutions. During that specific period, we do the migration from the on-prem to the scrubbing center, and at that point of time, we have this specific subscription for Radware Cloud WAF Service, which is to manage the web filtering of the application services passing through this Radware solution. What we expect from this is a combination of both signature-based and behavioral-based security models, alongside machine learning to detect and block threats without actual manual tuning.

The Source Blocking feature has been used for IP agnostic device fingerprinting, especially when there is a major challenge with simple IP-based sources and multiple source IPs attacking the networks. This device fingerprinting helped us collect dozens of browsers and devices, enabling us to create a unique fingerprint for each user. By doing this, we could block around 1500 or 1600 malicious source IPs, which were basically bot switch IPs. This has significantly narrowed down the attacks, stabilizing our service and ensuring no fluctuations or leaks, especially when a large number of malicious bot IPs are attacking our network.

We use the Radware Bot Manager, particularly when there are numerous registered bot devices, leveraging the Internet-based Deep Behavior Analysis (IDBA) to check movements, keystrokes, scrolling patterns, and other human interactions. This capability helps us collect unique attributes and create specific responses, such as blocking malicious bot IPs. In instances where we lack in-house expertise to manage and fine-tune bot policies, this feature effectively manages those services. The Radware ERT (Emerging Response Team) monitors and responds to bot attacks 24/7, providing human oversight that complements all automated systems to further reduce false positives and ensure continuous protection from incoming attacks.

Radware Cloud WAF Service's Web DDoS protection, HTTP L7, has significantly helped us protect our customer networks, earning a performance score of 10 out of 10. This DDoS protection mitigates all types of web attacks. It could be problematic for the customer if even a single attack got through.

Radware API Discovery is an advanced feature of Radware because it's used whenever there is a huge amount of phenomena called API sprawl. The results might be shadow APIs, zombie APIs, and redundancy. Radware API is about identifying and cataloging all these APIs used within organizations to ensure it includes all third parties, the managed and unmanaged APIs, and secure them so that consumers do not face any disturbances in the services they are using. It ensures that an alert has been generated to the monitoring teams at the time of detection, taking zero or milliseconds to create an alert and notify all monitoring parties about an attack based on such APIs, while also providing the best approaches to mitigate it in the least period of time.

We use CDN services because they are a basic part of the Radware Cloud WAF Service. If we don't use the CDN services, then it might not be the best security configuration to protect a network. The Radware Cloud WAF Service protects against zero-day attacks at definitely 9.5 to 10. The performance in these cases is really good; I don't even see it utilizing half of the resources while effectively mitigating all the attacks.

It's medium to difficult to use the Radware API Discovery due to its complexity. I have almost two and a half years of experience, so I'm familiar with this service, but recently, we have had new engineers rolled into our operations teams, and they are finding it challenging to understand from the start because of this complexity and the different approaches for hardening and best practices to ensure everything runs smoothly. So, for a new user, it's between medium to difficult based on the complexity.

The implementation of Radware Cloud WAF Service is complex. However, this complexity is not solely attributed to the Cloud WAF, as we have experienced compatibility issues with different vendor devices that have hindered integration. While we can integrate it, we definitely face challenges if the engineer does not know exactly how to execute it. The command for the integrations and the procedure are somewhat complex, yet it's really helpful overall. We haven't encountered a single device suggesting that Radware is not compatible for integration. We wanted to integrate with some Cisco devices, but due to version gaps, Cisco TAC informed us that those devices are not compatible for integration with Radware.

I have been using Radware Cloud WAF Service for almost two years and six months.

We haven't seen any instability such as lagging, crashing, or downtime. If there had been a downtime, Radware wouldn't be our go-to solution partner because we have critical customers. If downtime occurred, customers would abandon the solution. Our telecom customer is the second largest telecom provider in the UK.

For the scalability part of Radware Cloud WAF Service, I would rate it nine out of ten. It's good, but it can be improved.

We have contacted Radware technical support on several occasions when a new attack has been detected or if we notice disturbances in the network. We manage different services through various teams, and whenever there is a significant impact, or we observe extreme attack patterns or anomalies in the logs, we reach out to the technical teams to understand the unusual behavior. Most of the time, these issues have arisen due to required version updates.

I would give the Radware technical support a ten out of ten. They are definitely outstanding.

Positive

Before Radware Cloud WAF Service, we used a feature in the FortiGate firewall. Initially, it was a centralized solution, and we had multiple firewalls deployed between the outside network and the intranet. At that time, we had this WAF feature in those FortiGate firewalls that helped us do the work. But when the deployment changed from the centralized in-house solution to an out-of-path approach, Radware pitched the idea of removing the multiple firewalls with a single WAF feature. The customer agreed, and after that, the implementation of the WAF started.

The integration part of the Radware Cloud WAF Service is complex. Being a security operation engineer or a SOC engineer, managing complex devices can prove challenging. The integration should not be so complex that engineers expend excessive time just to understand the behavior after entering a single command. I believe the deployment can be simplified by providing exact commands or parameters. However, if Radware adopts this approach, it may unintentionally create vulnerabilities or loopholes. I think if Radware focuses on customer usage and emphasizes making it easier for engineers to work on necessary changes or modifications promptly, it would benefit overall functionality.

Annual maintenance is not required for the Radware Cloud WAF Service, but we perform quarterly checks on configurations, performance, and the health of devices and resources. Over the past two years, we haven't required maintenance or encountered any configuration issues or device replacements.

When we talk about the cost, the Radware API Discovery has definitely helped us because once it was implemented, we are not facing any SLA breach issues with the customers whose network we are protecting via this service, helping us save a lot of money. When there is an SLA breach, the critical part is identifying the issue, so this is helping us do that within the minimum period of time, allowing us to mitigate it as soon as possible. It helps us in those scenarios where we are not paying a huge penalty to the customers whose network we protect. Also, it helps narrow down manpower costs since we don't need many engineers to manage this solution; only one or two engineers are enough to maintain it.

I haven't discovered anything new about incoming bot traffic by using the Radware Bot Manager. We haven't seen any new behavior that is suspicious or problematic.

Regarding real-time BLA detection and mitigation, this feature is not used much in our environment. We have it enabled, but we have not utilized it frequently since it focuses on real-time protection against all business logical attacks. Our emphasis is on consumer services in telecommunications, and the primary feature we use is behavior-based detection. For example, the Radware BLA can detect forced browsing, where an attacker bypasses normal navigation behavior to access restricted pages or files. However, we get attacks primarily disturbing services calls and SMS, not in business areas banking; thus, we don't leverage this feature much.

We have seen a reduction in the false positives with the Radware Cloud WAF Service. However, the number is still not that low; it has helped us identify false positives, but in some cases, out of 100, there are still seven to eight false positives. That number is not good for us from a security perspective.

I would rate Radware Cloud WAF Service a nine out of ten.

We use the Radware Cloud WAF Service to monitor the traffic on our website. It has good detection capabilities in terms of protecting us against the OWASP Top 10, API-related attacks, and bot attacks. We use it to monitor on a day-to-day basis and to protect our website.

We utilize the DDoS protection and geolocation protection filter from the Radware Cloud WAF Service. The geolocation feature proved particularly helpful during tensions between India and Pakistan, allowing us to block Pakistani traffic and prevent multiple attacks. The DDoS protection sends regular notifications about blocked requests based on its AI and ML engines before they reach our website.

A favorite feature of the Radware Cloud WAF Service is the OWASP Top 10. This is the basic feature, and they are getting into AI, which makes it quite smart. It monitors all our traffic and in 15 to 30 days, it creates a whole map wherein it's able to figure out anomalies within the traffic if there is any deviation.

The API Discovery feature is particularly good. Once discovery is performed on the website, it captures all the APIs integrated into the application, which reduces manual work needed to add each API into the Radware Cloud WAF Service.

From a documentation perspective, the documentation needs updating in terms of ease of implementation. Users have to work with it independently once or twice to get accustomed to it. The documentation doesn't contain all necessary information, requiring users to read other forums or seek help from colleagues who have experience with it.

Regarding zero-day protection, it takes considerable time to update signatures in the Radware Cloud WAF Service. There is typically a delay of one to two days after a threat has been reported in the wild before signatures are updated and applied to the detection engine.

The reporting functionality needs improvement. The dashboard offers limited customization options. They have preset dashboards visible on the main page, but customization options are restricted. For management presentations, users must extract the data and create their own visualizations.

The API protection documentation needs to be more thorough to help first-time users configure it easily.

I have been using Radware Cloud WAF Service for approximately one and a half years.

I haven't experienced any lagging or crashing with Radware Cloud WAF Service.

Scalability of Radware Cloud WAF Service is good. Based on website needs, most aspects are managed by Radware themselves as it's a Cloud WAF solution. Scalability has not been a problem from their end.

The support quality and speed vary depending on the issue. For IP blocking, they are very quick to respond, which is crucial when dealing with attacks on a website. However, for troubleshooting matters that require interaction between our engineer and their engineer, it takes longer than expected to assign an engineer. This has led to mixed reactions regarding customer support interactions.

Neutral

I have experience with alternatives to the Radware Cloud WAF Service, particularly Akamai. Both solutions have their advantages and disadvantages. While Radware Cloud WAF Service is a strong overall package, Akamai's SOC team is more proactive in their communication. They maintain better contact and inform users about detected attacks. They call whenever anomalous behavior is detected on applications, rather than requiring users to check the portal for alerts.

Initial deployment of the Radware Cloud WAF Service was smooth. A Radware engineer was assigned to guide us through the implementation process. Challenges arose when we started exploring other features and tried to implement them independently, as the documentation wasn't designed as a step-by-step guide.

The full deployment took approximately two to three months, as we implemented it in phases. We began with less critical websites, and after we were confident that the solution wasn't blocking unnecessary traffic, we migrated more critical applications.

Updates and maintenance are handled by Radware. For website updates, we take responsibility, but for tool-based maintenance, Radware notifies us via email about maintenance phases and manages the process.

I do not have visibility on the financial terms, including the costs and potential savings. However, from a work perspective, it is very helpful that it can discover everything autonomously, reducing the need for manual intervention. In that regard, I would say it is cost-effective.

We do not use CDN services with the Radware Cloud WAF Service in our environment. The Bot Manager, one of their latest offerings, requires time initially to learn behaviors and bot crawlers on our website. After the learning period, it performs effectively with fewer false positives, and its fingerprinting and AI capabilities work efficiently.

The Bot Manager revealed the number of crawlers on our website daily, providing telemetry we didn't previously capture. We share Bot Management data with our compliance team, showing statistics about good and bad bots blocked and cumulative bot traffic.

Initially, there were many false positives. As time progressed with the Radware Cloud WAF Service, we experienced fewer false positives in the environment. However, there are still approximately 5% of cases where it blocks legitimate traffic. When end users report these instances, we need to go back and whitelist those IPs.

For source blocking, while it handles most tasks automatically, sometimes we must raise a ticket to get the source blocked explicitly.

I would rate Radware Cloud WAF Service a seven out of ten. There is scope for improvement, but it's on the right track.

The core use cases for Radware Cloud WAF Service are web application firewall functionality, DDoS protection, and protection against zero-day vulnerability and emerging threats.

The most valuable aspect of Radware Cloud WAF Service is that it supports mode detection and provides email alerts on sudden alert spikes and early warnings. The most advanced feature is the DDoS protection and the way this web handles DDoS attacks, as I am currently working in the SOC team and managing the Radware administration part.

Regarding zero-day attacks, Radware Cloud WAF Service helps us actively receive early warnings, and we raise those to the relevant teams. The services related to zero-day attacks and threat intelligence are very effective.

The dashboard of Radware Cloud WAF Service could be more interactive and user-friendly. While implementing it for the first time, it requires core technical knowledge, and without that knowledge, implementation can be quite challenging. However, the support from Radware is excellent when support cases are raised.

I have been using Radware Cloud WAF Service for three and a half years in my career after joining my current organization.

Regarding stability, I have not experienced any lagging, crashing, or downtime in my experience with Radware Cloud WAF Service.

Radware Cloud WAF Service is scalable; once we set up the entire service and it is up to date, we can onboard as many applications as our license allows.

I have contacted Radware's technical support many times, and their quality is very good as we receive timely support according to the case priority. Their engineers are skilled and capable enough to resolve issues quickly.

Positive

I have used alternatives to Radware Cloud WAF Service, specifically Akamai Web Service, which is a very popular service. One of its disadvantages is that it does not support custom ports like Radware does.

The entire process of onboarding the application for the first time with Radware Cloud WAF Service requires core technical knowledge, but with the support of Radware, it becomes much easier.

The pricing of Radware Cloud WAF Service is lower compared to Akamai, and while the price in the industry is acceptable, it is not too expensive.

The combination of negative and behavioral-based positive security models provided by Radware Cloud WAF Service is very important for my organization's security strategy, as the main purpose of Radware WAF is security.

Regarding maintenance, we receive quarterly reports, which are sufficient.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Radware Cloud WAF Service an 8.

We have COTS and SaaS applications that are onboarded behind this Radware Cloud WAF Service. We are leveraging the Radware SaaS platform, and that is how it is being used; we have huge traffic hitting every day on the applications hosted behind it.

The Bot Manager operates on the concept of AI/ML and is essential for our security strategy. The security events and alerts generated by the Bot Manager are crucial, enabling us to stop numerous attacks from various sources. By using the Bot Manager, we've discovered important insights about our incoming bot traffic that we weren't aware of before. Previously, we did not have that functionality, but after enabling Bot Manager, we began receiving alerts and visibility into anomalies that we weren't aware of. This added visibility allows us to monitor identified traffic, with some already blocked while still keeping others under watch, protecting our applications from excessive traffic through Radware Cloud WAF Service.

The real-time BLA detection and mitigation processes have significantly enhanced our threat management with Radware Cloud WAF Service. Enabling various blades, including this real-time functionality, ensures we have visibility and can block undesired traffic effectively.

I have tried using the API discovery feature with the Radware Cloud WAF Service for almost all of our onboarded applications, and it's pretty straightforward. It provides useful results, and our application penetration testing team leverages it significantly, making it very helpful for gathering data during tests. 

We have integrated Radware Cloud WAF Service with our SIEM tool to capture audit logs and security events. The integration process is quite simple, thanks to the available connectors and developed methodologies, making it one of the simplest integrations we've done, even though they have limited connectors and integrations at this point.

Incorporating Radware's combination of negative and behavioral-based positive security models is becoming essential for our security strategy as we delve into the AI world and machine learning. User analytics and behavior analysis are very important, with anomalies flagged by the analytics engine running behind the traffic hitting the Radware Cloud WAF Service.

What I appreciate the most about Radware Cloud WAF Service is that the UI is quick and very simple. Ease of administration is crucial since I'm the administrator looking after it. The functionality they have, starting from onboarding applications to managing them, is pretty straightforward; modifications, additions, or deletions are completed without complex codes or scripts. Additionally, the data populated post-onboarding includes both an executive view and detailed views for security analysts, which are incredibly helpful. If we compare this to other Cloud WAFs, we often don't get as much information for many security alerts, requiring deeper investigation. However, with Radware Cloud WAF Service, details are available when opening any security alerts, making the process more efficient.

Source blocking is a straightforward feature in the Radware Cloud WAF Service. We can easily block or whitelist traffic coming from certain geo-locations or specific IPs. I find that feature nicely implemented in a simple manner.

The web DDoS protection, particularly HTTP L7, is critical and has helped us immensely. It provides visibility, especially over port 80 and 443, as well as custom ports offered by Radware, and has proven essential for preventing denial-of-service attacks, whether distributed or isolated.

The automated analytics for looking at events is where there is room for improvisation in the Radware Cloud WAF Service. They are working on improving the automated capabilities of workflows and integrating AI, but it's not quite up to the mark yet. There's a lot of work to be done since various customers have different requirements, and any implemented automated features should provide expected results.

They need to improve the support side. Information should be more readily available on their support portal, especially knowledge-based articles for customers to resolve queries independently. The support portal used to be slow, and the UI experience was less than ideal, although it has improved over time. Additionally, the lack of an AI chatbot has been a downside, though we have been notified that functionality is in development now.

On the reporting side, customization options are limited; creating tailored reports is currently not possible, which is a significant drawback since full customization is crucial for effective data presentation.

I have been using Radware Cloud WAF Service for two and a half years.

In terms of stability, Radware Cloud WAF Service operates at 99.99% uptime. I have never witnessed any lagging, crashing, or downtime.

Scalability isn't an issue with Radware Cloud WAF Service; we can onboard as many applications as we need, and since it operates in the cloud, they effectively expand their resources as required.

I have contacted technical support with Radware Cloud WAF Service numerous times, mainly because I am the administrator overseeing all features. I regularly interact with their support team and customer success managers. The quality of support from Radware Cloud WAF Service is good; however, they must improve the speed of addressing customer queries, especially for straightforward questions. They adhere to policies but need to resolve blockers for customers much quicker. There's substantial room for improvement on their support side. I would give a score of seven out of ten for the quality of support received from Radware Cloud WAF Service based on my current experiences.

Neutral

I have used alternatives to Radware Cloud WAF Service, including Akamai, which we leveraged for different purposes, but that service is being discontinued.

The initial deployment with Radware Cloud WAF Service was straightforward and lacked complexity. There wasn't much information needed, making it easy to set up.

There is no maintenance required on our end since Radware Cloud WAF Service is a cloud-based and SaaS product. They manage everything, and we only need to monitor our applications.

Pricing with Radware Cloud WAF Service depends on the applications we want to onboard and how negotiations go between our technical commercial teams and Radware. Based on all current deals, it has been a win-win situation for both parties, and I feel satisfied with the pricing.

When it comes to false positives with Radware Cloud WAF Service, we absolutely get a lot of them. Whenever we onboard new applications, it's expected to encounter numerous false positives, which will mature over time. We have tweaked our queries to improve the ratio of true positives versus false positives, and now we don't see as many false positives compared to when we started with Radware Cloud WAF Service. It is important to note that onboarding applications with high traffic will still likely yield some false positives, which is expected in the cybersecurity world, but we see it maturing over time. 

With regards to protecting against zero-day attacks using Radware Cloud WAF Service, we haven't seen any such attacks being caught or flagged by the Radware team. While we do catch information from various sources, media, and other channels, we feel there isn't a reliable tool that can notify us of zero-day detections at the outset.

We don't use any CDN services with the Radware Cloud WAF Service at the moment. All our applications are on-prem, accessed from specific geo-locations, and currently, we don't require CDN services. 

We are not using the PCI DSS 4 extension compliance with Radware Cloud WAF Service, as we don't have any applications storing sensitive records.

I would rate Radware Cloud WAF Service a nine out of ten.

My use case for Radware Cloud WAF Service  is for blocking malicious IP addresses.

Radware Cloud WAF Service blocks threats effectively, providing a comprehensive report that shows the traffic and denied traffic from malicious IPs or specific countries, so I am satisfied. 

Radware Cloud WAF Service has reduced the false positive rate, and it's beneficial for our organization. By using Radware Cloud WAF Service, 30% to 40% of false positives are reduced.

For zero-day attacks, Radware Cloud WAF Service integrates threat intel, which detects anomalous traffic and blocks it automatically, preventing attackers from entering our organization or attacking our domains. Source blocking is effective because it has good capability to handle things automatically without human intervention, as a human cannot handle all the alerts and traffic.

The real-time BLA detection and mitigation of Radware Cloud WAF Service strongly performs to mitigate and take action against contamination. Radware Cloud WAF Service is quite effective and handles all traffic to HTTP or HTTPS effectively.

My organization is quite large, so we have to monitor activities promptly. Since it's not possible for a human to detect and address every threat, we implemented Radware Cloud WAF  Service, which automatically detects and prevents DDoS threats and traffic without human intervention, making it better for us and protecting our organization.

With the automated analytics of Radware Cloud WAF  Service, if multiple logins occur from the same malicious IP in the same pattern, the AI automatically recognizes it and takes the appropriate action, such as blocking or allowing, which is beneficial for us.

Improvement areas could be some of the AI capabilities related to false positives. The required IP addresses sometimes get blocked, so that needs to be enhanced. The AI recognizing features can be improved. Recognition aspects could be refined; it's performing at almost 99%, so there's a small margin for improvement.

I have been using Radware Cloud WAF Service for three years in my organization.

It is stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We have about 35 users working with this solution.

I would rate their customer support a ten out of ten.

Positive

It is easy. It takes 10 to 15 days.

The pricing for Radware Cloud WAF Service is moderate; it's not expensive. We can't say it's low and we can't say high; it's moderate, and I got that perfect point.

It is easier to use with a moderate cost than others.

To assess Radware Cloud WAF Service for blocking unknown threats and attacks, we have found that if an IP is identified as malicious, we can block it, and we utilize the graph chart provided. Using the CDN  with Radware Cloud WAF Service is easy to implement and use; it's not a headache for us.

I would rate Radware Cloud WAF Service a nine out of ten.