Contributed by Diana Polansky, Cloud Security Product Marketing Manager, and Sergio Silva, Product Incubation Manager.

When we started to plan our goals for the new year, we took the time to think about your goals as well – and we don’t mean your personal New Year’s goals, like going to the gym more often. We mean your application security goals.

You may know that you need to choose a new AppSec vendor, and you may already be in the evaluation process. But there are so many vendors to choose from and many of them seem to offer the same set of “hot” features. But can they really help you? And do you really need certain things?

To manage the overwhelm, see this list of the most commonly asked application security questions in relation to Check Point’s products (below).  The answers will likely assist you in moving your security in the right direction. Enjoy!

Is Check Point’s solution a WAF, WAAP, or RASP?

That’s a good question. We get that one a lot. The simple answer is: we are a WAAP – a web application and API protection solution. This is the next-generation of a web application firewall (WAF), but so much more.

CloudGuard AppSec goes beyond the traditional WAF to protect applications against common, external threats as well as automated bot attacks, API attacks, malicious file uploads, and even targeted attacks to your application layer.

While WAF and RASP (runtime application self-protection) solutions offer crossover capabilities, they typically need to be used together in order to protect web applications against both broad, well-known threats and highly specific, often unknown threats. With our cloud WAAP, you get both capabilities and more rolled into a single solution.

Do you protect against zero-day exploits?

Absolutely. In fact, CloudGuard AppSec is the only solution on the market capable of preemptively protecting against recent zero-day attacks including Log4j, Spring4Shell, and Text4Shell – without the need to update signatures and firewall rules.

This was accomplished through a contextual machine learning engine that analyzes how users typically interact with your web applications and automatically blocks malicious requests such as those pesky Java vulnerabilities.

Do you protect beyond the OWASP Top 10?

Yes. As noted above, we protect against both known and unknown attacks. The OWASP Top 10 is just a starting point – and offers bare minimum guidelines for application security.

To truly protect your web applications, you need to protect against both common exploits AND more sophisticated attacks. With CloudGuard AppSec, you get automatic protection against a wide range of attacks without having to worry about accidentally blocking legitimate requests.

Can you protect our APIs?

Yes, and we understand your concern. Cyber attacks against APIs are surging, and we’re sure you’re worried about your API ecosystem. Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.

CloudGuard AppSec protects APIs from abuse and misuse by monitoring for unusual behavior and automatically blocking any request not found to be valid.

Can you protect our site from malicious bots?

Yes, in fact, we prevented a potentially catastrophic Russian bot attack on a customer site. And the company couldn’t stop singing our praises.

CloudGuard AppSec uses client-side behavioral analysis to distinguish between human and non-human interactions with your site – and will protect you from all kinds of bot attacks including credential stuffing, brute force attacks, and automated account creation.

Can you meet our compliance requirements?

Yes and no. Using a solution with WAF capabilities and third-party certifications will help you meet many of your compliance requirements, but not all.

For example, CloudGuard AppSec is SOC2 certified, which means you can trust how we use your customer data. But while we meet the PCI DSS requirements for a web application firewall, you’ll probably need to get quarterly vulnerability scans and satisfy other requirements for how you handle cardholder data.

We recommend you check these requirements as well as other regulatory compliance requirements such as GDPR, NIST, ISO, NERC CIP, and HIPAA.

Further engagement

If you’d like to learn more, read the full article here. We also recommend you check out the following whitepaper, documentation, and on-demand-demo. And be sure to read this tell-all conversation about the biggest cloud security trends, challenges and solutions – featuring Check Point’s VP of Cloud Security, Tsion (TJ) Gonen.

If your organization needs to restructure its IoT security strategy, attend Check Point’s upcoming CPX 360 event. Register here.

Lastly, to receive cutting-edge cyber security news, best practices and resources in your inbox each week, please sign up for the CyberTalk.org newsletter.