TRAINING COURSE

Configuring F5 Advanced WAF (previously licensed as ASM)

In this 4-day course, students are provided with a functional understanding of how to deploy, tune, and operate F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall to protect their web applications from HTTP-based attacks.

The course includes lecture, hands-on labs, and discussion about different F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall tools for detecting and mitigating threats from multiple attack vectors such web scraping, Layer 7 Denial of Service, brute force, bots, code injection, and zero day exploits.

Course Objectives

  • Describe the role of the BIG-IP system as a full proxy device in an application delivery network
  • Provision the F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall
  • Define a web application firewall
  • Describe how F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall protects a web application by securing file types, URLs, and parameters
  • Deploy F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall using the Rapid Deployment template (and other templates) and define the security checks included in each
  • Define learn, alarm, and block settings as they pertain to configuring F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall
  • Define attack signatures and explain why attack signature staging is important
  • Deploy Threat Campaigns to secure against CVE threats
  • Contrast positive and negative security policy implementation and explain benefits of each
  • Configure security processing at the parameter level of a web application
  • Deploy F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall using the Automatic Policy Builder
  • Tune a policy manually or allow automatic policy building
  • Integrate third party application vulnerability scanner output into a security policy
  • Configure login enforcement for flow control
  • Mitigate credential stuffing
  • Configure protection against brute force attacks
  • Deploy Advanced Bot Defense against web scrapers, all known bots, and other automated agents
  • Deploy DataSafe to secure client-side data

Course Topics

  • Resource provisioning for F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall
  • Traffic processing with BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
  • Web application concepts
  • Mitigating the OWASP Top 10 and other vulnerabilities
  • Security policy deployment
  • Security policy tuning
  • Deploying Attack Signatures and Threat Campaigns
  • Positive security building
  • Securing cookies and other headers
  • Reporting and logging
  • Advanced parameter handling
  • Using Automatic Policy Builder
  • Integrating with web vulnerability scanners
  • Login enforcement for flow control
  • Brute force and credential stuffing mitigation
  • Session tracking for client reconnaissance
  • Using Parent and Child policies
  • Layer 7 DoS protection
    • Transaction Per Second-based DoS protection
    • Layer 7 Behavioral DoS Protection
  • Configuring Advanced Bot Defense
    • Web Scraping and other Microservice Protection
    • Working with Bot Signatures
  • Using DataSafe to Secure the client side of the Document Object Model

Audience

This course is intended for SecOps personnel responsible for the deployment, tuning, and day-to-day maintenance of F5 Adv. WAF. Participants will obtain a functional level of expertise with F5 Advanced WAF, including comprehensive security policy and profile configuration, client assessment, and appropriate mitigation types.

  • Experience with LTM is not required. 
  • Prior WAF knowledge is not required.
  • This course is on the list of approved study resources for the F5 ASM 303 certification exam.

Prerequisites

There are no F5-technology-specific prerequisites for this course. However, completing the following before attending would be very helpful for students with limited BIG-IP administration and configuration experience:

  • Administering BIG-IP instructor-led course

      -or-

  • F5 Certified BIG-IP Administrator

The following free web-based training courses, although optional, will be very helpful for any student with limited BIG-IP administration and configuration experience. 

The following general network technology knowledge and experience are recommended before attending any F5 Global Training Services instructor-led course:

  • OSI model encapsulation
  • Routing and switching
  • Ethernet and ARP
  • TCP/IP concepts
  • IP addressing and subnetting
  • NAT and private IP addressing
  • Default gateway
  • Network firewalls
  • LAN vs. WAN
Course Outline

Chapter 1: Setting Up the BIG-IP System

  • Introducing the BIG-IP System
  • Initially Setting Up the BIG-IP System
  • Archiving the BIG-IP System Configuration
  • Leveraging F5 Support Resources and Tools

Chapter 2: Traffic Processing with BIG-IP

  • Identifying BIG-IP Traffic Processing Objects
  • Understanding Profiles
  • Overview of Local Traffic Policies
  • Visualizing the HTTP Request Flow

Chapter 3: Web Application Concepts

  • Overview of Web Application Request Processing
  • Web Application Firewall: Layer 7 Protection
  • Layer 7 Security Checks
  • Overview of Web Communication Elements
  • Overview of the HTTP Request Structure
  • Examining HTTP Responses
  • How F5 Advanced WAF Parses File Types, URLs, and Parameters
  • Using the Fiddler HTTP Proxy

Chapter 4: Web Application Vulnerabilities

  • A Taxonomy of Attacks: The Threat Landscape
  • Common Exploits Against Web Applications

Chapter 5: Security Policy Deployment

  • Defining Learning
  • Comparing Positive and Negative Security Models
  • The Deployment Workflow
  • Assigning Policy to Virtual Server
  • Deployment Workflow: Using Advanced Settings
  • Configure Server Technologies
  • Defining Attack Signatures
  • Viewing Requests
  • Security Checks Offered by Rapid Deployment
  • Defining Attack Signatures

Chapter 6: Policy Tuning and Violations

  • Post-Deployment Traffic Processing
  • How Violations are Categorized
  • Violation Rating: A Threat Scale
  • Defining Staging and Enforcement
  • Defining Enforcement Mode
  • Defining the Enforcement Readiness Period
  • Reviewing the Definition of Learning
  • Defining Learning Suggestions
  • Choosing Automatic or Manual Learning
  • Defining the Learn, Alarm and Block Settings
  • Interpreting the Enforcement Readiness Summary
  • Configuring the Blocking Response Page

Chapter 7: Attack Signatures and Threat Campaigns

  • Defining Attack Signatures
  • Attack Signature Basics
  • Creating User-Defined Attack Signatures              
  • Defining Simple and Advanced Edit Modes
  • Defining Attack Signature Sets
  • Defining Attack Signature Pools
  • Understanding Attack Signatures and Staging
  • Updating Attack Signatures
  • Defining Threat Campaigns
  • Deploying Threat Campaigns

Chapter 8: Positive Security Policy Building

  • Defining and Learning Security Policy Components
  • Defining the Wildcard
  • Defining the Entity Lifecycle
  • Choosing the Learning Scheme
  • How to Learn: Never (Wildcard Only)
  • How to Learn: Always
  • How to Learn: Selective
  • Reviewing the Enforcement Readiness Period: Entities
  • Viewing Learning Suggestions and Staging Status
  • Defining the Learning Score
  • Defining Trusted and Untrusted IP Addresses
  • How to Learn: Compact

Chapter 9: Securing Cookies and Other Headers

  • The Purpose of F5 Advanced WAF Cookies
  • Defining Allowed and Enforced Cookies
  • Securing HTTP headers

Chapter 10: Visual Reporting and Logging

  • Viewing Application Security Summary Data
  • Reporting: Build Your Own View
  • Reporting: Chart based on filters
  • Brute Force and Web Scraping Statistics
  • Viewing Resource Reports
  • PCI Compliance: PCI-DSS 3.0
  • Analyzing Requests
  • Local Logging Facilities and Destinations
  • Viewing Logs in the Configuration Utility
  • Defining the Logging Profile
  • Configuring Response Logging

Chapter 11: Lab Project 1

Chapter 12: Advanced Parameter Handling

  • Defining Parameter Types
  • Defining Static Parameters
  • Defining Dynamic Parameters
  • Defining Parameter Levels
  • Other Parameter Considerations

Chapter 13: Automatic Policy Building

  • Overview of Automatic Policy Building
  • Defining Templates Which Automate Learning
  • Defining Policy Loosening
  • Defining Policy Tightening
  • Defining Learning Speed: Traffic Sampling
  • Defining Track Site Changes

Chapter 14: Web Application Vulnerability Scanner Integration

  • Integrating Scanner Output
  • Importing Vulnerabilities
  • Resolving Vulnerabilities
  • Using the Generic XML Scanner XSD file

Chapter 15: Deploying Layered Policies

  • Defining a Parent Policy
  • Defining Inheritance
  • Parent Policy Deployment Use Cases

Chapter 16: Login Enforcement and Brute Force Mitigation

  • Defining Login Pages for Flow Control
  • Configuring Automatic Detection of Login Pages
  • Defining Brute Force Attacks
  • Brute Force Protection Configuration
  • Source-Based Brute Force Mitigations
  • Defining Credential Stuffing
  • Mitigating Credential Stuffing

Chapter 17: Reconnaissance with Session Tracking

  • Defining Session Tracking
  • Configuring Actions Upon Violation Detection

Chapter 18: Layer 7 DoS Mitigation

  • Defining Denial of Service Attacks
  • Defining the DoS Protection Profile
  • Overview of TPS-based DoS Protection
  • Creating a DoS Logging Profile
  • Applying TPS Mitigations
  • Defining Behavioral and Stress-Based Detection

Chapter 19: Advanced Bot Defense

  • Classifying Clients with the Bot Defense Profile
  • Defining Bot Signatures
  • Defining F5 Fingerprinting
  • Defining Bot Defense Profile Templates
  • Defining Microservices protection

Chapter 20: Form Encryption using DataSafe

  • Targeting Elements of Application Delivery
  • Exploiting the Document Object Model
  • Protecting Applications Using DataSafe
  • The Order of Operations for URL Classification

Chapter 21: Review and Final Labs

  • Final Lab Project (Option 1) – Production Scenario
  • Final Lab Project (Option 2) – Managing Traffic with Layer 7 Local Traffic Policies

SKU: F5-TRG-BIG-AWF-CFG

Course type: Instructor-Led Training

Price: $3,995 (USD)

Course Length: 4 days

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