Implementing Cloud WAF Rules

When to Use

• When deploying new web applications or APIs behind cloud load balancers requiring OWASP protection
• When application penetration testing reveals SQL injection, XSS, or other injection vulnerabilities
• When experiencing brute force, credential stuffing, or bot attacks against authentication endpoints
• When compliance requirements mandate a WAF for PCI-DSS or similar standards
• When tuning WAF rules to reduce false positives blocking legitimate application traffic

Do not use for network-level DDoS protection (use AWS Shield or Azure DDoS Protection), for API authentication design (see managing-cloud-identity-with-okta), or for application code-level security fixes (WAF is a compensating control, not a replacement for secure code).

Prerequisites

• AWS ALB/CloudFront, Azure Application Gateway, or Cloudflare configured as the application entry point
• Application traffic logs for baseline analysis before WAF deployment
• Test environment for validating WAF rules before production enforcement
• Understanding of application request patterns to minimize false positives