REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 31, 2013) - Qualys, Inc. (
Qualys will showcase these new capabilities at Black Hat USA 2013 Briefings -- booth #401 -- from July 31 to August 1.
WAFs work by shielding web sites by applying a set of rules to HTTP conversations to prevent them from being attacked. However, WAF technology is costly and complex to apply because these rules need to be customized to the applications, and they must be updated often to cover changes to the applications and to address new and emerging threats. As a result, many organizations cannot afford to deploy WAFs, or they can only deploy them on a select number of mission critical web properties.
"It can be challenging for companies to use WAFs because initial costs are high compared with other technologies," said Phil Hochmuth, program manager, security products, IDC. "They can also be expensive to maintain because once they are deployed, they must be carefully monitored and maintained by skilled web application security specialists or developers. This can be challenging to manage, and lead to configuration mistakes."
Qualys has developed a cloud WAF service, delivered as part of the QualysGuard Cloud Platform and suite of integrated applications, as an affordable, automated, always up-to-date solution for protecting web sites and increasing their performance. Leveraging the QualysGuard Cloud Platform, the new QualysGuard WAF is designed to provide:
- Real-time application defense, blocking attacks against websites as they happen.
- Application hardening, minimizing application attack surfaces by providing a shield around coding defects, application framework flaws, web server bugs and loose configurations.
- Low-cost, automated service maintained and updated by Qualys' security experts providing new defenses and features transparently to users and site visitors.
- A multitude of deployment options for distributed WAF protection points managed through a common, central policy administration and reporting interface with APIs for integration.
Customers using WAF will experience benefits including:
- Always up-to-date rules.
- Immediate rules deployment on all WAFs connected to QualysGuard.
- Maximum efficiency as rules are strengthened with security events from all WAF customers.
- In-cloud or on-premise web site protection, with a SaaS platform providing centralized management for distributed WAF virtual appliances.
"Qualys is committed to delivering powerful, effective cloud solutions that remove the cost and complexity associated with IT security and compliance, and we are excited to provide an affordable, automated solution with our next generation WAF," said Philippe Courtot, chairman and CEO for Qualys. "The debut of our WAF service in beta for Amazon EC2, as well as with an on-premise virtual appliance image, will offer customers the flexibility they need to protect their applications no matter where they reside."
Availability Starting August 1, Amazon Web Services (AWS) users can launch WAF appliances from an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to gain real-time defense of their websites and applications running on Amazon EC2, protecting them against attack. Starting September 1, users can download our WAF appliance VMware virtual image to protect web applications residing on premise within datacenters.
About QualysGuard Cloud Platform The QualysGuard Cloud Platform and its integrated suite of security and compliance solutions help provide organizations of all sizes with a global view of their security and compliance posture while reducing their total cost of ownership. The QualysGuard Cloud Suite, which includes Vulnerability Management, Web Application Scanning, Malware Detection Service, Policy Compliance, PCI Compliance and Qualys SECURE Seal, enables customers to identify their IT assets, collect and analyze large amounts of IT security data, discover and prioritize vulnerabilities and malware, recommend remediation actions and verify the implementation of such actions.
About Qualys
Qualys, Inc. (
For more information, please visit www.qualys.com .
Qualys, the Qualys logo and QualysGuard are proprietary trademarks of Qualys, Inc. All other products or names may be trademarks of their respective companies.
