Transforming E-commerce Security with Azure WAF and Firewall: A Business Case

Introduction

In today’s world of online shopping, security has become crucial for e-commerce businesses. With the growing number of customers shopping online, the risk of cyberattacks also increases. For any online retailer, protecting customer data and maintaining trust is vital. This case study explores how one global e-commerce company used Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) and Azure Firewall to strengthen its platform’s security.

Challenges of Securing a Global E-commerce Platform

As the company expanded, it encountered several security hurdles:

• Handling High Traffic: Millions of visitors visit the platform daily, especially during sales events. The challenge was managing this traffic without slowing down the site or risking a security breach.
• Defending Against Cyber Threats: The platform faced constant threats from hackers and other cybercriminals.
• Protecting Customer Data: Ensuring the privacy and safety of customer information was a top priority, especially to meet legal and regulatory requirements.
• Staying Operational: The company needed to keep the platform running smoothly, even during unexpected traffic surges or technical issues.

Solution

Organizations can opt for two key services from Azure to tackle these challenges:

Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Azure WAF was put in place as the first layer of defense. It helped by:

• Stopping Threats Before They Hit: WAF could detect and block common attacks, such as attempts to steal data using SQL injection or disrupt services with cross-site scripting (XSS). This significantly lowered the risk of security breaches.
• Protection Against DDoS Attacks: During large-scale attacks aimed at overwhelming the site, Azure WAF kept the site accessible to genuine users.
• Flexible Security Rules: The company could customize security settings, such as creating temporary blocks for suspicious traffic during major events. This helped prevent fake users from accessing the platform.

Azure Firewall

While WAF protected the web applications, Azure Firewall secured the network. Its role included:

• Centralized Control: Managing all security policies from one central place made operations simpler and more efficient.
• Threat Intelligence: Azure Firewall automatically blocks traffic from known malicious IP addresses, adding an extra level of defense.
• Scaling with Business Growth: As the company grew, Azure Firewall expanded to meet increasing demands without interrupting service, even during peak traffic.

Read More: Achieving Business Resilience with Effective Load Balancing in Azure

Results: Enhanced Security and Performance

The deployment of Azure WAF and Azure Firewall resulted in significant improvements in both security and operational performance:

• Improved Security: There was a decrease in successful cyberattacks against the platform, with WAF now blocking thousands of bad requests per day.
• Better Customer Experience: On top of that, the platform did not slow down one bit, and it continued to run at very high speeds. This allowed the customers to have seamless shopping all along even during peak period times.
• Continuous Service: Azure WAF in combination with Firewall kept the service available and working through huge sales events, DDoS attacks, regional issues, or all of that at once.

Key Takeaways for E-commerce Security

There are some key lessons other e-commerce businesses can learn from this case study:

• More Is More When It Comes to Security: Application-level protection plus network-level protection equals a more secure system.
• Your Security Should Grow with Your Business: As your business expands, your security needs will also increase. Azure’s scalable tools ensure you’re protected no matter how much traffic or threats you face.
• Custom Solutions Matter: Tailoring security rules to fit your specific needs, like this company did during promotions, can provide extra protection when it’s most needed.

Conclusion

Among e-commerce businesses, security is the most important. This global e-commerce company case study discusses how it implemented Azure WAF and Azure Firewall with a high degree of success in protecting its web applications and network infrastructure. The solutions ensure protection against different kinds of security threats that could compromise the environment, hence making the experience for customers not very safe and reliable.

This is done by implementing Azure WAF and Azure Firewall which allow e-commerce companies to protect their environments not only from present risks but future security challenges. With the growth of digital threats that are growing up to maturity, these served environments in securing e-commerce platforms and other served environments. We offer end-to-end Data & Analytics services to help our customers leverage the power of Data and unlock actionable business insights. Connect with our experts today.