New Training: Describe Cisco SD-WAN Security

In this 8-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Jeff Kish explores security in the SD-WAN architecture, including application-aware firewalling, IPS, URL filtering, and cloud security. Watch this new networking training.

Watch the full course: Cisco CCNP Implementing Cisco SD-WAN Solutions

This training includes:

• 8 videos

• 42 minutes of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Intro

• Edge Security

• Application-Aware Firewall

• IDS/IPS

• URL Filtering

• DNS Security

• Advanced Malware Protection (AMP)

• Review and Quiz

Application-Aware vs Web Application Firewalls: What’s the Difference?

In many ways, an application-aware firewall and a web application firewall perform many of the same tasks. In fact, many firewall appliances may include both types of firewalls. There are subtle differences you need to understand, though.

The traditional firewall blocks traffic at a port level. For instance, let's say that you are running an Apache web server in your business. You'll want to allow access to ports 80 and 443 through your firewall so that your Apache server can communicate with the outside world. What happens if a piece of malware shuts down Apache and starts listening for incoming requests on those two ports, though? A traditional firewall will allow those requests through. All it knows is that traffic should be allowed on ports 80 and 443.

An application-aware firewall understands those ports should only be used for Apache. If Apache shuts down, the firewall will not continue to let traffic through on ports 80 and 443.

A web application firewall works similarly. Instead of it being application-aware, it's HTTP-aware. At an application level, all HTTP traffic looks similar. So, web application firewalls are designed to analyze HTTP traffic for differences in the same way an application-aware firewall will analyze traffic to figure out which application incoming traffic is meant for.