Configuring F5 Advanced WAF (previously licensed as ASM)

The BIG-IP Application Security Manager course provides participants with the expertise needed to detect, mitigate, and prevent HTTP-based attacks on web applications. The four-day lab intensive course starts at the simplest level for quickly configuring and implementing an application security policy and progresses through more complex configurations. The course includes detailed analysis and hands-on exercises for protecting web applications from brute force, web scraping, layer 7 DDoS, and other current attack vectors.

Topics covered in this course include:

• Setting up the BIG-IP system
• Traffic processing with BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
• Web application concepts
• Web application vulnerabilities
• Security policy deployment
• Attack signatures
• Positive security building
• Cookies and other headers
• Reporting
• User roles and administration
• Advanced parameter handling
• Application templates
• Real Traffic Policy Builder
• Vulnerability scanners
• Login enforcement and session tracking
• Anomaly detection
• ASM and iRules
• AJAX and JSON support
• XML and web services support

• Describe the role of the BIG-IP system as a full proxy device in an application delivery network 

• Provision the Application Security Manager 

• Define a web application firewall

 • Describe how ASM protects a web application by securing file types, URLs, and parameters 

• Deploy ASM 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 ASM

 • Define attack signatures and explain why attack signature staging is important 

• Contrast positive and negative security policy implementation and explain benefits of each 

• Configure security processing at the parameter level of a web application

 • Use an application template to protect a commercial web application 

• Deploy ASM 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 and session tracking 

• Configure protection against brute force, web scraping, and Layer 7 denial of service attacks 

• Implement iRules using specific ASM events and commands 

• Use Content Profiles to protect JSON and AJAX-based applications 

• Implement Bot Signatures 

• Implement Proactive Bot Defense

Chapter 1: Setting Up the BIG-IP System

• Introducing the BIG-IP System
• Initially Setting Up the BIG-IP System
• Creating an Archive of the BIG-IP System
• Leveraging F5 Support Resources and Tools

Chapter 2: Traffic Processing with BIG-IP

• Understanding Traffic Processing with LTM
• Overview of Local Traffic Policies and ASM

Chapter 3: Web Application Concepts

• Anatomy of a Web Application
• An Overview of Common Security Methods
• Examining HTTP & Web Application Components
• Examining HTTP Headers
• Examining HTTP Responses
• Examining HTML Components
• How ASM parses File Types, URLs, & Parameters
• Using the Fiddler HTTP proxy tool

Chapter 4: Web Application Vulnerabilities

• Examining the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities
• Summary of risk mitigation using ASM

Chapter 5: Security Policy Deployment

• About Positive and Negative Security Models
• Deployment Wizard: Local Traffic Deployment
• Deployment Wizard: Configuration settings
• Violations and Security Policy Building
• Reviewing Violations

Chapter 6: Attack Signatures

• Defining Attack Signatures
• Attack Signature Features
• Defining Attack Signature Sets
• About User-defined Attack Signatures
• Updating Attack Signatures
• Understanding Attack Signatures and staging

Chapter 7: Positive Security Policy Building

• Defining Security Policy Components
• Security Through Entity Learning
• Reviewing Staging and Enforcement
• Understanding the Selective mode
• Learning Differentiation: Real threats vs. false positives

Chapter 8: Cookies and other Headers

• Purposes of ASM Cookies
• Understanding Allowed and Enforced Cookies
• Configuring security processing on HTTP headers

Chapter 9: Reporting and Logging

• Reporting capabilities in ASM
• Generating a PCI Compliance Report
• Generating an ASM Security Events Report

Chapter 10: User Roles, policy modification, and other deployments

• Understanding User Roles & Partitions
• Editing and Exporting Security Policies

Chapter 11: Lab Project 1

Chapter 12: Advanced parameter handling

• Defining Parameters
• Defining Static Parameters
• Configuring Dynamic Parameters and Extractions

Chapter 13: Application-Ready Templates

• Application-Ready Template Overview

Chapter 14: Real Traffic Policy Builder

• Overview of the Real Traffic Policy Builder
• Defining Policy Types
• Real Traffic Policy Builder Rules

Chapter 15: Web Application Vulnerability Scanners

• Integrating ASM with Application Vulnerability Scanners
• Resolving Vulnerabilities
• Using the generic XML scanner output

Chapter 16: Login Enforcement, Session tracking, and Flows

• Defining Login Pages
• Configuring Login Enforcement
• Configuring session and user tracking
• Defining Flows
• Configuring Flow Control

Chapter 17: Anomaly Detection

• Defining Anomaly Detection
• Preventing Brute Force Attacks
• Preventing Web Scraping
• Geolocation Enforcement
• Configuring IP Address Exceptions

Chapter 18: ASM and iRules

• Defining iRules and iRule Events
• Using ASM iRule Event Modes
• iRule Syntax
• ASM iRule Commands

Chapter 19: Web 2.0 Support: AJAX and JSON

• Defining Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
• Defining JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
• Configuring a JSON Profile

Chapter 20: XML and Web Services

• Defining XML
• Configuring an XML Profile
• XML Attack Signatures

Chapter 21: Review and Final Labs

This course is intended for security and network administrators who will be responsible for the installation, deployment, tuning, and day-to-day maintenance of the Application Security Manager.