ITPEC FE Subject A April 2025 Question 32

Inspecting and filtering HTTP requests — a WAF is a firewall that works at the level of the web application.

A Web Application Firewall sits in front of a web application and examines the contents of HTTP requests (HTTPS after decryption): URLs, parameters, headers and bodies. Requests that match attack patterns, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting or directory traversal, are blocked or logged. An ordinary firewall filters only by IP address and port and would let these requests through.

Answer (b)

Why not others:

• •(a) — encrypting traffic is the role of TLS, and access control on the server is done by the web server or the OS, not the WAF
• •(c) — authenticating users and deciding what they may do is identity and access management, handled by the application or an identity provider
• •(d) — scanning the server's files for malware is the job of anti-malware software, while a WAF looks at requests in transit

Key rule: A network firewall filters addresses and ports; a WAF filters the content of HTTP requests to protect vulnerable web applications.

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