WAF: Specifically designed to inspect and filter inbound web traffic, blocking malicious patterns and attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other threats directly targeting your web applications. This makes it the ideal choice for defending the public tier where these attacks are most likely to originate.
Traffic Management (Edge): While it offers content delivery acceleration and security features like DDoS protection, Edge doesn,t specifically analyze traffic for web application vulnerabilities. Its focus lies more on performance optimization and generic security measures.
Certificate Authority (CA): Primarily issues and manages certificates for secure communication. While crucial for authentication and encryption, it doesn,t directly prevent web application attacks.
VCN Security Lists: Offer basic firewall functionality by controlling inbound and outbound traffic at the network level. They can block specific ports or IP addresses but lack the sophisticated threat detection and filtering capabilities of WAF.
Why WAF is particularly suitable:
Deep inspection: Examines the content of web requests, not just headers or source IP addresses, allowing it to identify and block complex attacks targeting your application logic.
Rule-based protection: You can define custom rules to address specific vulnerabilities or threats relevant to your application.
Managed service: OCI WAF is available as a managed service, simplifying deployment and maintenance.