Title
AWS re:Invent 2023 - How to control bots and help prevent account fraud using AWS WAF (NET321)
Summary
- AWS WAF is a security service that protects against common internet threats and can be easily implemented into applications.
- Bots can be beneficial or malicious, and nearly half of a site's traffic can be bots if not controlled.
- AWS WAF offers bot and fraud detection services, including Amazon Managed Rules (AMRs) for bot control and fraud prevention.
- Common bots are manageable through AWS WAF, which can verify good bots and block unverifiable ones.
- Targeted bots, which emulate human behavior and are financially motivated, are detected through challenges, client fingerprinting, and machine learning.
- AWS WAF also provides account takeover prevention (ATP) and account creation fraud prevention, using request and response inspection to block malicious activities.
- Real-life scenarios demonstrated how AWS WAF effectively mitigated DDoS attacks, reduced unwanted traffic, and prevented account takeovers, with the flexibility to optimize for cost and performance.
Insights
- AWS WAF's multi-layered security engine is capable of zero-day mitigation, geo-blocking, and traffic shaping to protect against DDoS attacks.
- The bot control feature in AWS WAF can significantly reduce unwanted traffic, which can be up to 95% during peak events like sales.
- Managed rules and custom rules in AWS WAF allow for flexibility and adaptability to evolving security threats.
- AWS WAF's bot and fraud detection services use a combination of rule-based strategies, client challenges, and machine learning to identify and block malicious bots.
- The use of silent challenges and AWS WAF tokens increases the cost for bot operators, making attacks less financially viable.
- AWS WAF's account takeover and account creation fraud prevention services can inspect login and signup processes to prevent brute force and credential stuffing attacks.
- Real-world examples highlighted the effectiveness of AWS WAF in reducing infrastructure impact, providing operational health, and managing security in a cost-effective manner.
- AWS WAF's composable system allows for tailored solutions to specific security needs, and AWS is open to customer feedback to improve their services.