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3 Reasons Why Data Centers & Hosting Companies Need Web Application Security

2020-10-30 Blog

web application firewall

If you’re an internet data center (IDC) or web hosting provider, you are likely tasked with making security accessible to customers. While a network firewall serves as the first line of defense in your data center, security solutions like web application firewalls (WAF), application delivery controllers, and sandboxing software are needed to address emerging threats aimed at your data center and customers.

This is because a majority of cyber threats actually target web applications, meaning a network firewall or an intrusion prevention system (IPS) is unable to provide any sort of protection. 

Luckily, WAFs address the most attack-prone subsystem within a technology infrastructure: the webserver. What are the ways web application security can benefit data centers and web hosting providers you may ask? 

Reduce costs

WAFs are available in a variety of forms for data centers including hardware appliances and containers. Sometimes, they can also potentially run as a virtual machine within your infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud presence or directly on your virtual private server (VPS). 

These are on-prem WAF options that run in a data center, effectively protecting web servers from web attacks and DDoS attacks.

If offered as a cloud solution, the WAF protects all your public cloud applications while also protecting your on-premises data center. This is able to help reduce your total cost of ownership. By using a single centrally managed, a cloud-based WAF replaces the traditional hardware-based WAF solutions, which typically include installation costs, configuration, and more. 

Resolve customer security concerns

resolve concerns

Lack of security can create a negative experience for your customers particularly because they handle thousands of websites that need their data center for uptime. 

An unprotected site may suffer from downtime, website defacement, loss of login access, and reduced website speeds. That’s when a WAF can help in absolving the security concerns of end-users, which is a huge benefit for your own customers who handle these websites. 

A WAF protects end-user websites from the most common web attack types including SQL injection, XSS attacks, buffer overflow attacks, and more.  Even though you are maintaining and securing the hosting platform itself, the website application layer works at a different level and needs WAF protection as well to secure the web applications and websites of customers. 

Gain additional revenue and stand out among competitors

Data centers are able to package their services in a way that is attractive to customers such as web hosting companies. Because data centers indirectly deal with end-user websites, they can monetize from WAFs by simply referring a WAF vendor to their web hosting provider or DNS provider customers. This creates an opportunity for you to capture additional revenue whilst not having to manage the WAF yourself. 

Data centers have a great advantage in monetizing certain security solutions like WAF by working with such vendors. Furthermore, maintaining a low price puts you ahead of the competition who may offer expensive security add-ons. Therefore, it makes sense to partner with WAFs that are cost-effective in order to keep overall costs low.

Contact Cloudbric today for a partnership inquiry! 

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