About this course
Course 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.
Target Audience
This course is intended for SecOps personnel responsible for the deployment, tuning, and day-to-day maintenance of F5 Adv. WAF. Participants will obtain a functional level of expertise with F5 Advanced WAF, including comprehensive security policy and profile configuration, client assessment, and appropriate mitigation types.
- Experience with LTM is not required.
- Prior WAF knowledge is not required.
- This course is on the list of approved study resources for the F5 ASM 303 certification exam.
Course Objectives
- Describe the role of the BIG-IP system as a full proxy device in an application delivery network
- Provision the F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall
- Define a web application firewall
- Describe how F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall protects a web application by securing file types, URLs, and parameters
- Deploy F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall using the Rapid Deployment template (and other templates) and define the security checks included in each
- Define learn, alarm, and block settings as they pertain to configuring F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall
- Define attack signatures and explain why attack signature staging is important
- Deploy Threat Campaigns to secure against CVE threats
- Contrast positive and negative security policy implementation and explain benefits of each
- Configure security processing at the parameter level of a web application
- Deploy F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall using the Automatic Policy Builder
- Tune a policy manually or allow automatic policy building
- Integrate third party application vulnerability scanner output into a security policy
- Configure login enforcement for flow control
- Mitigate credential stuffing
- Configure protection against brute force attacks
- Deploy Advanced Bot Defense against web scrapers, all known bots, and other automated agents
- Deploy DataSafe to secure client-side data
Course Content
Chapter 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
Chapter 2: Traffic Processing with BIG-IP
- Identifying BIG-IP Traffic Processing Objects
- Understanding Profiles
- Overview of Local Traffic Policies
- Visualizing the HTTP Request Flow
Chapter 3: Web Application Concepts
- Overview of Web Application Request Processing
- Web Application Firewall: Layer 7 Protection
- 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
Chapter 4: Web Application Vulnerabilities
- A Taxonomy of Attacks: The Threat Landscape
- Common Exploits Against Web Applications
Chapter 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
- Defining Attack Signatures
Chapter 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
Chapter 7: Attack Signatures and 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
Chapter 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
- Defining the Learning Score
- Defining Trusted and Untrusted IP Addresses
- How to Learn: Compact
Chapter 9: Securing Cookies and Other Headers
- The Purpose of F5 Advanced WAF Cookies
- Defining Allowed and Enforced Cookies
- Securing HTTP headers
Chapter 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
Chapter 11: Lab Project 1
Chapter 12: Advanced Parameter Handling
- Defining Parameter Types
- Defining Static Parameters
- Defining Dynamic Parameters
- Defining Parameter Levels
- Other Parameter Considerations
Chapter 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
Chapter 14: Web Application Vulnerability Scanner Integration
- Integrating Scanner Output
- Importing Vulnerabilities
- Resolving Vulnerabilities
- Using the Generic XML Scanner XSD file
Chapter 15: Deploying Layered Policies
- Defining a Parent Policy
- Defining Inheritance
- Parent Policy Deployment Use Cases
Chapter 16: Login Enforcement and Brute Force Mitigation
- Defining Login Pages for Flow Control
- Configuring Automatic Detection of Login Pages
- Defining Brute Force Attacks
- Brute Force Protection Configuration
- Source-Based Brute Force Mitigations
- Defining Credential Stuffing
- Mitigating Credential Stuffing
Chapter 17: Reconnaissance with Session Tracking
- Defining Session Tracking
- Configuring Actions Upon Violation Detection
Chapter 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
Chapter 19: Advanced Bot Defense
- Classifying Clients with the Bot Defense Profile
- Defining Bot Signatures
- Defining F5 Fingerprinting
- Defining Bot Defense Profile Templates
- Defining Microservices protection
Chapter 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
Chapter 21: Review and Final Labs
- Final Lab Project (Option 1) – Production Scenario
- Final Lab Project (Option 2) – Managing Traffic with Layer 7 Local Traffic Policies
Course Prerequisites
There are no F5-technology-specific prerequisites for this course. However, completing the following before attending would be very helpful for students with limited BIG-IP administration and configuration experience:
- Administering BIG-IP instructor-led course
-or-
- F5 Certified BIG-IP Administrator
The following free web-based training courses, although optional, will be very helpful for any student with limited BIG-IP administration and configuration experience. These courses are available at F5 University:
- Getting Started with BIG-IP web-based training
- Getting Started with BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM) web-based training
The following general network technology knowledge and experience are recommended before attending any F5 Global Training Services instructor-led course:
- OSI model encapsulation
- Routing and switching
- Ethernet and ARP
- TCP/IP concepts
- IP addressing and subnetting
- NAT and private IP addressing
- Default gateway
- Network firewalls
- LAN vs. WAN
