Application Firewalls: Don't Forget About Layer 7

Web and database communication have become the prevalent communication now integrated into nearly every production system in the corporate infrastructure. Most business processes rely heavily on the confidentiality, integrity and availability of these systems. Securing web-based communication is and will remain vital to existing business sustainability and future growth. The enterprise web application environment is a rapidly evolving, mission critical, domain consisting of web, application, and database servers. Backend data stores house information that must be protected from unauthorized access from both internal and external sources. Measures must be implemented that monitor web and database traffic on previously approved transmission ports and protocols.