Web Application Firewalls takes wings as more businesses take to clouds
It used to be said that if you had your head in the clouds you were a daydreamer, someone who was incapable of concentrating on a single thing for long enough to achieve something. However, as we move deeper into the age of technology, the place where most businesses now want to be is in the clouds.
In fact, according to recent study by Technavio, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for cloud-based technology solutions, specifically web application firewalls (WAF), will be 19% until 2019. Thanks to a greater need among businesses to move their services online, easily accessible, highly efficient and dynamic technology (security that adapts over time) is now a must.
Cloud Business Booming
As a testament to the growing significance of cloud-based business solutions, Workday Inc. recently reported a sales increase of 43% in Q4 of 2015. The company specialises in human resources and financial software designed to help businesses move many of their services online and in the final quarter of 2015 it generated sales of $323 million.
The boom in sales, according to Chief Executive Officer Aneel Bhusri, is a sign that more companies are now moving their software to the cloud. Indeed, it’s a similar story at another cloud-based software provider, Salesforce.com Inc. The company’s services via the internet looks set to hit a “turning point” according to analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. This prediction has since caused the company’s shares to rise by 19% to $71.74 on the New York Stock Exchange.
With the business world now willing to put its head in the clouds and outsource more resources to the ether, it comes back to the need for greater security. Data breaches are all too common and, despite more companies taking the issue more seriously, hackers are still trying to expose vulnerable entities.
Attacks Highlight Security Issues
Back in 2015 there were a number of high-profile attacks, but few garnered as many headlines as the Ashley Madison case. Due to a bad MD5 hash implementation, 37 million customer records (including passwords) were stolen and subsequently published online by a group known as Impact Team. Of course, incidents involving a database of people wanting an extramarital affair aren’t something many major businesses will need to contend with. However, with more information going online, security is now more important than ever.
As stated by the researchers at Technavio, WAFs are going to become a more significant part of a business’s portfolio of products in the coming years. Through market leaders such as Imperva Incapsula, businesses will now be looking to protect their cloud-based services using the real-time monitoring capabilities of a web application firewall (WAF).
Enterprise-grade WAFs can offer 99.999% uptime, real-time support and monitoring by experts, and intelligence crowd sourcing (using data from the network to constantly improve) and they will soon be the go-to choice for all companies. Only by using a WAF with a simple GUI and the ability to protect against cross-site scripting, SQL injections and more can a business owner be confident that their cloud-based entities are safe.
WAF a Must for Business Moving Forward
Although businesses are improving all the time, a study by the Web Application Security Consortium found that more than 13% of sites can be compromised “completely automatically” and that 99% of web applications are not compliant with PCI DSS standards.
This apparent weakness, combined with the strength of the cloud-based business market, is the reason WAFs are going to become more prevalent in the coming years and the reason all businesses owners should be looking to use them.
Source | TechWorm
