Securing keys and secrets
Securing your applications against network-level attacks is often the first line of defense. With the additional capabilities of a WAF, you can readily protect against many forms of attacks and issues in your code.
But not all attacks come head-on. Most attacks are usually through insider threats – either maliciously or accidentally. What we mean by this is that, if we think back to Mark Twain’s proverb, it’s those that seek to get around the front door that often cause the biggest problems.
Therefore, we need to think about attack vectors other than a direct one over the network. If our network is secure, and our frontend is secure, we must consider how the backend can be exploited.
From a network point of view, this is quite difficult; if an attacker has found a way around these controls, the next level of protection is usually authentication. Because the asset we want to protect is our data, we must consider strategies to protect...