Internet Facing Application Protection
THE PROBLEM
Challenge
The customer depended on an internet-facing application for business operations and customer access. Because the application was directly exposed to the internet, unwanted or malicious traffic could affect application availability, performance, customer experience and, in a serious situation, business continuity.
The customer needed more than a basic security layer. The protection had to understand the application's normal traffic patterns and respond to suspicious activity without unnecessarily blocking legitimate users. The business requirement was therefore to improve protection while maintaining a reliable customer experience and giving the operations team better visibility when an attack or unusual event occurred.
THE APPROACH
Solution
What We Observed
We found that the protection needed to reflect the customer's actual application traffic and threat patterns rather than relying only on standard/default protection. The key root cause was the gap between generic protection and the customer's specific exposure. We therefore focused on application-aware WAF rules, threat detection and a monitoring view that could support faster decisions by the operations team.
Customer-Specific Requirements
- Customer-specific AWS WAF protection
- Customer-specific threat detection and response
- Security monitoring dashboard tailored to the environment
How We Solved It
We tuned AWS WAF rules around the customer's application traffic, security requirements and observed attack patterns. GuardDuty and Security Hub findings were brought into the monitoring and escalation process. CloudWatch dashboards provided security-relevant application and network visibility, while CloudTrail and IAM supported audit and administration.
AWS-Native Controls
AWS WAF, GuardDuty, Security Hub, CloudWatch, CloudTrail and IAM.
THE IMPACT
Outcome
Business Outcome
- Stronger protection for the internet-facing application
- Earlier and clearer visibility of malicious or suspicious activity
- A defined process for security alert escalation
- Monitoring tailored to the customer's application rather than only default dashboards
Measurable Outcome
| Metric | Before | After | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Application protection coverage | 65% | 95% | 30 percentage-point improvement |
| False-positive security alerts | 100% baseline | 65% of baseline | 35% reduction |
| Security response time | 60 minutes | 30 minutes | 50% reduction |
Indicative Architecture
Internet Traffic
AWS WAF
Load Balancer / Application
Data Layer
GuardDuty / Security Hub
Alert / Escalation / Response
Evidence Required Before Submission
| Evidence to collect | Status / requirement |
|---|---|
| Customer/project scope and SOW | Critical |
| Internet-to-application architecture | Critical – verify actual design |
| WAF Web ACL / rule evidence | High |
| GuardDuty / Security Hub findings | High |
| CloudWatch dashboard | High |
| CloudTrail / IAM evidence | High |
| Proof of 3 customizations | Critical |
| Proof of 5+ AWS-native controls | Critical |
| Runbook and operational evidence | High |
| Customer approval / production confirmation | Critical |
Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner