Cloudflare Application Services

Cloudflare’s comprehensive platform and network offer a complete set of cloud security and delivery services that enhance monitoring, performance, and protection of your digital portfolio. Key benefits: 

• Comprehensive architecture suitable for any standard or unique use scenarios of web applications 

• Integration ensures user convenience (single-pass authentication) and a network that is within 50 ms of 95% of Internet users. 

• Data collection and analysis. Cloudflare processes about 20% of all Internet traffic and blocks approximately 227 billion threats daily, helping to effectively route traffic and prevent attacks. 
• Unified interface simplifies security and network management by reducing the number of tools and alerts through unifying all services in one interface. 

Cloudflare WAF (Web Application Firewall) – is a powerful tool for protecting web applications from cyber threats. It analyzes threats in real time, using AI and Cloudflare’s global network, Cloudflare Connectivity Cloud. Thanks to this, WAF is able to effectively block even zero-day attacks, for which solutions are yet to be found. 

Cloudflare WAF is placed in front of web applications and monitors incoming traffic, applying advanced protection measures:

• Using powerful rule sets to prevent attacks.

• Rate limiting to minimize DDoS attacks.

• Credential stuffing checks and scanning of uploaded content.

• Integration with other Cloudflare security solutions to create layered protection.

 

Cloudflare WAF helps block attacks on your applications, such as the top 10 OWASP threats, account takeover attempts, malware uploads, and much more. 

Blocking common attacks such as SQL code injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) 

Cloudflare uses core rules for the top 10 vulnerabilities according to OWASP to block the most common layer 7 OSI model attacks. 

Blocking attacks based on credential stuffing attempts 

Our WAF prevents account takeovers, detecting and blocking the use of stolen or compromised user credentials. 

Detection of malware in uploaded files 

WAF content scanning protects your web servers and corporate network from malware by scanning files as they are uploaded to your application. 

Cloudflare provides automatic mitigation of DDoS attacks at the edge of its global network. Most attacks are blocked in less than three seconds, which minimizes the risks of downtime and disruptions in business operations. 

Cloudflare uses a distributed global infrastructure, including over 335 data centers. This allows attacks to be blocked as close as possible to the source of the threat. 

Using AI continuously improves protection mechanisms, helping to stay ahead of new types of attacks. 

Key Usage Scenarios 

Blocking attacks in less than 3 seconds

Cloudflare’s automated system detects and stops most DDoS attacks in seconds without the need for additional intervention. 

Minimizing financial losses

Malicious traffic is neutralized directly at its source, reducing the load on infrastructure and minimizing latency in web resources. 

Monitoring traffic and threats

Cloudflare’s built-in analytics tools allow you to track traffic structure, analyze detected attacks, and obtain detailed reports through the GraphQL API or directly in the control panel. 

Cloudflare CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a global content delivery network that optimizes the delivery of static and dynamic content according to the capabilities of the device, browser, and network bandwidth. The Cloudflare network covers 335 locations in different countries around the world, ensuring fast loading speed of web resources and reducing server load. 

Cloudflare has an extensive network with 335 points of presence worldwide, allowing effective load distribution and content delivery from the nearest Cloudflare points of presence. This ensures high availability and minimal latency for users anywhere in the world.

Increasing Load Speed

Thanks to caching technologies and traffic distribution, Cloudflare CDN provides fast content delivery. Most users receive content within 50 milliseconds, significantly enhancing the usability of web resources.

Reducing Traffic Costs

Cloudflare’s CDN reduces hosting and outbound traffic costs since most requests utilize cached data. This minimizes server load, which is especially crucial for companies with a large volume of traffic.

How does Cloudflare CDN work?

Cloudflare distributes content across its global network, increasing data availability. All Cloudflare services operate on every server in each data center, enabling quick user request responses and automatic redirection to the nearest available Cloudflare network node.

The network supports both static and dynamic content, improving site performance and resilience to high loads.

Cloudflare DNS is a secure and resilient DNS service that provides the fastest response time (averaging 11 ms), robust redundancy (present in over 335 cities) and enhanced security.

High Performance

Cloudflare DNS is one of the fastest in the world: it provides an average DNS query speed of 11 ms, enabling the quickest website load times.

Reliability without Compromise

Cloudflare’s global network offers optimal redundancy, allowing DNS queries to be processed at any of our data centers located in over 335 cities worldwide.

Protection from DNS Attacks

Cloudflare provides built-in protection against DDoS attacks and DNSSEC, effectively countering threats and safeguarding your applications from attacks.

Simple DNS Management

Cloudflare allows management of all domains through a convenient web interface or API, regardless of the hosting platform where your resources are located.

Built-in security tools allow for protection of DNS from DDoS attacks, which can increase response time. Additionally, using DNSSEC ensures DNS responses are authenticated, preventing users from being redirected to malicious sites.

Key Use Cases for Cloudflare DNS

Unlimited DDoS Attack Protection

Cloudflare offers unlimited protection against DDoS attacks with no additional traffic fees. Network bandwidth is 23 times greater than the capacity of the largest recorded attacks.

Phishing Attack Prevention

Easy setup of DNS records for email protection helps prevent the use of your domain for phishing attacks.

Advanced DNS Analytics

The Cloudflare dashboard provides detailed, real-time DNS traffic analytics, allowing you to monitor system health promptly.

Cloudflare API Gateway operates on a global network basis of Cloudflare, which covers 335 locations worldwide. It automatically detects, analyzes, and protects API endpoints, ensuring their continuous security and stable operation without loss of performance for businesses.

Automatic API Discovery

The system continuously analyzes public API endpoints using AI models and heuristic algorithms. This allows the detection of new APIs, even those that are undocumented or uncontrolled.

Protection Against Key OWASP Threats

API Gateway blocks the most common API threats:

• Zero-day exploits;

• Authentication vulnerability attacks;

• Sensitive data leakage;

• DDoS attacks;

• Business logic threats.

Cost Optimization

The API Gateway filters traffic, verifying compliance with API schemas, authentication mechanisms, and request legitimacy. This reduces server load and reduces hosting costs.

The API Gateway provides security and monitoring without compromising performance. It automatically detects, protects, and monitors API endpoints.

The API Gateway integrates application and API inventory, policy management, analytics, and reporting on a single platform. This provides centralized management with all the security and connectivity benefits offered by Cloudflare.

Key Use Cases for Cloudflare API Gateway

API Accounting and Management

Cloudflare API Gateway helps systematize API endpoints, providing their visibility and control, and also protects against attacks, vulnerabilities, and data leaks.

Shadow API Detection

The gateway allows you to document all public APIs in your infrastructure, even if they are not properly managed or secured.

Data Leak Prevention

The system continuously scans API responses, detecting potential leaks of sensitive information and prevents the transmission of sensitive data to malicious actors.

Implementing a Positive Security Model

The API Gateway accepts only requests that comply with OpenAPI standards, blocking malformed requests and abnormal HTTP activity.

Rate Limiting helps prevent DDoS attacks, automatic password guessing, traffic spikes, and other threats. Protect your applications and APIs from malicious actions by regulating traffic that exceeds set limits.

A user can configure request limits by IP addresses to protect open endpoints, reducing the number of requests from certain sources and preventing malicious actions.

If a higher level of protection and control is required, the advanced rate limiting feature can be used. This feature allows you to protect the API from attacks targeting the authentication process and to control requests by various parameters.

Main Use Cases

Setting Limits

The system allows you to set limits for URLs and API endpoints, blocking requests that exceed the established restrictions.

Defining Response to Limit Exceedance

When a user or bot reaches the set threshold value of requests, the system can take various actions, including:

• CAPTCHA or other forms of authentication;

• Delay before the next request;

• Complete blocking of access to resources;

• Receiving traffic analytics.

The system provides detailed traffic reports, including the volume of blocked requests, sources of attacks, and the number of requests reaching the server. This allows you to optimize settings and improve the security of resources.

Cloudflare Bot Management ensures blocking harmful bots without the need for a CAPTCHA, allowing you to protect web resources from automated attacks without creating unnecessary inconveniences for real users. The solution uses data analysis from millions of sites operating with Cloudflare, providing high-speed and accurate bot detection.

Cloudflare automatically analyzes user behavior and detects anomalies in network traffic. The system compares requests with baseline traffic metrics, utilizing AI tools that process hundreds of billions of requests daily. 

This allows to: 

• Automatically block malicious bots and not cause inconvenience to real users. 

• Quickly identify risks and analyze behavior patterns in real-time. 

Main usage scenarios 

Protection against malicious bots 

Cloudflare Bot Management prevents malicious bot activity that can slow down websites, steal confidential data, or execute DDoS attacks. 

Private Access Tokens 

The system supports user authenticity verification technologies without using CAPTCHA. For instance, Apple devices can ensure authentication without collecting personal data, enhancing the privacy level. 

Flexible rule settings 

Administrators can create custom bot management rules to suit business needs. This allows precise determination of which requests to block and which to allow, ensuring a balance between security and website accessibility. 

Cloudflare Load Balancing enhances system performance, availability, and user convenience by dynamically distributing traffic between geographically distributed servers and data centers. 

Load balancing distributes traffic across different computing resources to reduce server load, increase application availability, and decrease latency. 

This technology is integrated into the global Cloudflare network, which spans more than 335 cities and operates on a DDoS-resistant DNS. This provides the fastest authoritative DNS response in the world. 

Main Use Cases 

Global Traffic Management (GTM) 

The system evenly distributes traffic among geographically dispersed data centers, ensuring seamless application performance even during peak loads, technical failures, or attacks. 

Private Network Load Balancing (PNLB) 

With support for private IP addresses, it provides almost instantaneous switching to backup servers, regardless of their location – in private, public, or hybrid cloud environments.