Building Resilient Applications with Layered Security

TL;DR:

• What is happening? Fastly is launching new security packages (as of today!) 

• These new packages make it easier to buy, use, and grow with Fastly Security as your needs evolve.

• Pricing is simpler and more predictable – with less friction and fewer surprises.

• Reduce complexity while delivering stronger protection.

Your applications are your business, and the stakes for protecting them have never been higher. Threat actors don't just knock on your front door; they probe your APIs, scrape your valuable data with bots (with or without your consent), and attempt to overwhelm your servers with malicious traffic. No single security product can stop them all, and any vendor that claims that theirs will do this is foolish.

To keep your applications resilient, you need a layered defense-in-depth strategy that secures your entire application stack, integrates seamlessly with your existing workflows, and removes friction from your day-to-day tedium, while remaining flexible enough to grow as your needs change. When your security layers come from a unified solution, they talk to each other. Information gathered by one layer can inform your rules in another, creating an "immune system" for your application that gets smarter as you add more over time. Plus, buying point solutions from five different vendors is expensive and creates "integration debt" that will inevitably come back to cause problems later. 

What goes into an effective layered approach to application security? For starters, consider the following five core components, depending on the needs of your application environments:

• Next-Gen Web Application Firewall (WAF): Defend your application against common and more sophisticated exploits with a smart first layer

• API Security: Understand your exposure to public and third-party APIs, gain a complete picture of your production systems, and secure the connections between your applications

• DDoS Protection: Ensure your services stay online, even under heavy pressure from disruptive and distributed attacks against your applications and APIs 

• Bot Management: Distinguish between wanted and unwanted bot traffic to conserve your resources, protect your intellectual property, and enforce consent and monetization for scrapers

• Client-Side Protection: Defend your end users from browser-based malicious scripts

We know that implementing a full security suite all at once can feel overwhelming. The Fastly security product packages are designed to make it easier for your teams to select, purchase, implement, maintain, and grow effective security practices over time. You can secure what matters to you now, and add more products and features later as your capacity allows and your individual needs change. Why pay for advanced features when you're still in the early stages of launching your MVP? Start with a robust foundation to keep the lights on, and as your traffic increases and you become a bigger target, you can add more layers quickly and easily.

You won’t have to worry about unpredictable bills, either. If you use more product capabilities than your existing package includes, you’ll simply be billed based on your additional usage, without any overages or penalties for unexpected bandwidth spikes or attack traffic. Building and securing applications is hard enough without having to anticipate unplanned expenses. And you don’t have to take our word for it: just ask our satisfied customers how easy Fastly makes it to ship code without friction and ensure production systems are working as expected.

Your application deserves a defense that is as innovative as the code it protects. By adopting a modular, layered approach, you can defend against today’s sophisticated threats without overextending your budget or your team’s capacity.

Ready to learn more? Get in touch with our team for a personalized demo or chat with our team of security experts to see how Fastly can help.