Securing multi-cloud environments’ application security with Distributed Cloud Services

By: Gavin Sutton   On: 05/04/2022

With the increased use of cloud services for the enterprise, companies have been finding themselves using more than one cloud vendor to support their business applications. Whether it’s AWS, Azure, Google, or any of the many cloud vendors available in the market. There’s always a reason or two why a particular cloud service is the perfect fit for an application. The problem is, if a company has multiple applications, the business may end up using more than one cloud vendor services, which begs the question…how do you secure a multi-cloud environment and its applications?

On-premises systems and operations give IT security teams the opportunity to be in full control of their environment. Hardware, like servers, switches, routers, appliances, etc. are accessible and within reach, so securing these systems isn’t that difficult. On the other hand, how do you protect systems you can’t touch, are geographically distant, and come with limited access?

Exclusive Networks, along with its cloud-native subsidiary, Nuaware, established a partnership with F5, a leader in enterprise cloud, and application security and delivery services. This partnership adds F5’s list of Distributed Cloud Services to Exclusive Networks’ vast catalog of vendor products and services, giving Exclusive Networks’ customers the ability to build bundled solutions to securely connect, deploy, and manage their applications across multiple cloud environments.

The Distributed Cloud Services’ Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) solution is F5’s purpose-built global network supporting a cloud-native application infrastructure, delivering app and API protection across the board. These scalable cybersecurity services provided by WAAP include API Protection, Bot Defense, DDoS Protection, and Web Application Firewall (WAF).

  • API Protection: Since traditional web application firewalls can’t provide the necessary level of coverage to protect APIs and data flows, API Protection adds the necessary guards used to defend APIs from breaches. Using automatic API discovery and policies, these API guards keep bad actors from intruding and accessing the system, by adding an additional layer of security, protecting data, and preventing forced outages.
  • Bot Defense: Swarmed bot attacks cannot only take out a network, but these automated attacks also contribute to cases of account takeover, intellectual property theft, and web fraud. Bot Defense counters this type of attack by monitoring and recognizing authentic machine-to-machine communication and also deflecting malicious traffic patterns trying to enter a network.
  • DDoS Protection: Denial-of-service attacks can halt a company’s important business operations, causing loss of revenue and damaging reputation. WAAP’s defense against disruptive volumetric L3-L7 DDoS attacks filters incoming threats like request floods and spoofed/malformed traffic by providing shielding services at the network level.
  • Web Application Firewall (WAF): Used to protect infrastructure by acting as a proxy, WAAP’s WAF works by inspecting application requests and responses and blocking potential risks, including hacking, L7 denial-of-service attacks, and zero-day exploits.

F5’s WAAP not only defends networks, but adds end-to-end observability, giving a company’s cybersecurity team valuable insight of the infrastructure using a single-pane-of-glass interface. This benefit also helps IT teams identify their environments’ strengths and weaknesses as they build the defenses needed to counter evolving security threats.

App creation isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. The drive to create time/revenue-saving applications will only increase as more companies create and build upon their own software libraries used to help drive their businesses. However, the path to a secure application and API environment is not a simple one as cyber-attacks will continue to evolve and wreak havoc. For cybersecurity customers, navigating through available security options could prove difficult without the right guidance and expertise. Through its partnership with F5, Exclusive Networks and Nuaware are able to go into an established catalog of services to build out the right cybersecurity bundle needed to protect any given company’s network. To learn how WAAP can help protect a multi-cloud app environment, be sure to contact Exclusive Networks and Nuaware, today.