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Integrating NGINX App Protect into DevOps workflow with Git

Integrating NGINX App Protect into DevOps workflow with Git

The NGINX App Protect web application firewall (WAF) provides protection for web applications. As the applications are developed using DevOps processes also the setup, configuration and ongoing management of the WAF should be integrated into DevOps and GitOps processes. This talk will explain how we use GitOps to configure WAF rules using NGINX using our open source template that you can use yourself.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdcvnNYtJA

Code: https://gitlab.com/vshn/nginx-app-protect-demo/

Adrian Kosmaczewski
PRO

May 20, 2021
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  1. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Adrian Kosmaczewski, Developer Relations
    Integrating NGINX App
    Protect into DevOps
    work ow with Git
    May 20th, 2021 – 16:00 CEST
    Welcome to this presentation about integrating NGINX
    App Protect in your DevOps workflows! My name is
    Adrian Kosmaczewski, I’m in charge of Developer
    Relations at VSHN, the DevOps company, and I’ll be
    your host tonight.
    Joining me are Aarno Aukia and Sergio Nuzzo from
    VSHN, and also Vito Colletti, Daniel Schuler, Mario
    Klima and Susi Wernicke from F5, the company behind
    NGINX.
    Speaker notes
    1

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  2. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Pronounced ˈvɪʒn – like "vision"
    The DevOps Company
    Founded 2014, 40 VSHNeers located in Zürich
    Switzerland’s leading DevOps, Docker & Kubernetes partner
    24/7 support
    ISO 27001 certi ed
    ISAE 3402 Report Type 1 veri ed
    First Swiss Kubernetes Certi ed Service Provider
    Just a few words about VSHN; that’s how you
    pronounce the name, and we’re "The DevOps
    Company". We’ve been in Zurich since 2014, we’re 40
    engineers and we’re Switzerland’s leading DevOps,
    Docker & Kubernetes partner, offering 24/7 support to
    our customers. We’ve are certified in various ways, and
    most importantly, we were the First Swiss Kubernetes
    Certified Service Provider back in 2016.
    Speaker notes
    2

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  3. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    We’re partners of many companies very active in the
    Cloud Native space, you might recognize some of the
    logos on this slide. Of all these, today we’re going to
    talk about NGINX extensively! We love NGINX and we
    and many of our customers use their products every
    day.
    Speaker notes
    3

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  4. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Last but not least, we run our own "Platform as a
    Service" offering called "APPUiO". We’ve created our
    own suite of tools to manage lots of Kubernetes
    services from a central location, called "Project Syn".
    Last but not least, we have developed our own
    Kubernetes operator for backups, called K8up, which
    just like Project Syn is 100% open source on GitHub.
    Speaker notes
    4

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  5. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    DevOps → GitOps → DevSecOps
    NGINX App Protect
    Demo
    Questions & Answers
    Agenda
    Today we’re going to see how security can be
    incorporated in DevOps workflows.
    Then, how NGINX App Protect can be used to secure
    your systems from attackers.
    Finally, we’re going to see a short live demo: an
    integration of NGINX App Protect in an Exoscale SKS
    Kubernetes cluster.
    Please feel free to ask your questions in the Q&A box at
    the bottom of your Zoom window, and my colleagues
    and I will answer them at the end of the session.
    Let’s get started!
    Speaker notes
    5

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  6. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    DevOps → GitOps → DevSecOps
    Given the current state of cybersecurity threats, DevOps
    has become DevSecOps and teams have had to
    increase the resiliency of their applications on the
    cloud.
    There are, however, far too many threats out there.
    Speaker notes
    6

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  7. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    1970s – 80s 1990s 2000s –
    Era Mainframes Client/server Cloud
    Technology COBOL, DB2 C++, OOP Java, web
    Cycle time Years Months Weeks
    Cost 1M – 100M 100K – 10M 10K – 1M
    At risk Company Division Feature
    Cost Bankruptcy CIO job Negligible
    There has been tremendous acceleration in the past
    decades, and a drastic drop in cost and risk. Adapted
    from Adrian Cockroft, "Velocity and Volume", FlowCon,
    San Francisco, 2013.
    Speaker notes
    7

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  8. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    1. The Principle of Flow
    2. The Principle of Feedback
    3. The Principle of Continual Learning and Experimentation
    The Three Ways of DevOps
    The first principle enables fast flow of work from dev
    to operations, making work visible, reducing batch
    size, and intervals of work; building quality in, and
    optimizing.
    The second principle enables faster detection,
    recovery, and learning from errors and mistakes, so
    that feedback loops are shortened continuously.
    The third principle supports the generation of a high-
    trust based culture that supports a scientific
    approach to experimentation and risk taking.
    Speaker notes
    8

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  9. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    If you want to know more, these are the books at the
    base of the pyramid.
    Speaker notes
    9

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  10. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Infrastructure as Code
    locals {
    zone = "ch-gva-2"
    }
    resource "exoscale_sks_cluster" "demo" {
    zone = local.zone
    name = "demo"
    version = "1.20.5"
    description = "Webinar demo cluster"
    service_level = "pro"
    cni = "calico"
    addons = ["exoscale-cloud-controller"]
    }
    resource "exoscale_security_group" "sks_nodes" {
    name = "sks_nodes"
    description = "Allows traffic between sks nodes and public pulling of logs"
    }
    DevOps engineers use a variety of tools these days to
    manage their infrastructure as code.
    In this slide, for example, we have an example of a
    Terraform configuration file used to generate the
    Exoscale SKS cluster that I’ll be using later for the
    demo.
    Speaker notes
    10

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  11. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    GitOps
    When Infrastructure as Code is stored in Git
    repositories, we start talking about GitOps; thanks to
    platforms such as GitHub and GitLab, developers can
    trigger the execution of CI/CD pipelines automatically
    every time they commit code to their repository.
    In this example, we can see the execution of a GitLab
    CI/CD pipeline.
    Speaker notes
    11

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  12. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    1. The Principle of Flow
    Continuously and proactively harden the security of apps
    2. The Principle of Feedback
    Keeping an eye open on threats
    3. The Principle of Continual Learning and Experimentation
    Through retrospectives and post-mortem reports
    DevSecOps (or DevGitSecOps?)
    How do the principles of DevOps apply in DevSecOps?
    Very straightforwardly, as it happens; through
    continuous monitoring, and learning of new threats,
    DevSecOps teams can increase proactively the security
    of their applications, through a flow of new security
    rules added to the system.
    The feedback loops goes to & from & with security
    specialists and developers and operators, all working
    together as a team.
    Speaker notes
    12

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  13. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    NGINX App Protect is precisely a tool that can be used
    in a DevSecOps strategy to provide increased security
    to applications running in production, even when the
    source code of those applications is no longer
    available.
    Speaker notes
    13

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  14. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Very high performance
    Protects off-the-box from a long list of attack vectors
    Works well in containers → perfect for Kubernetes
    NGINX Ingress Controller can auto-detect routes
    And automatically add WAF rules to them
    Security as Code → easily stored in Git repositories
    NGINX is very popular and well known by engineers!
    Advantages
    There are several reasons why NGINX App Protect is a
    compelling product to consider in your DevSecOps
    strategy. First of all, NGINX is a popular product among
    engineers; it works in containers, making it perfect for
    Kubernetes; it has exquisite off-the-box integration with
    Kubernetes through the NGINX Ingress Controller; and it
    can be re-configured at runtime using Kubernetes
    objects.
    Speaker notes
    14

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  15. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Source: "High-Performance Application Security Testing" by GigaOM
    High Performance
    In our benchmarks, NGINX App Protect
    outperformed ModSecurity at all tested attack
    rates. NGINX App Protect produced 92% lower
    latency than NGINX running ModSecurity (…)
    NGINX App Protect produced 82% lower latency
    than AWS WAF at 1,000 tps on the 5% bad
    request test.
    www.nginx.com/resources/library/high-performance-app-security-testing
    In terms of performance, GigaOM has published a
    report comparing NGING App Protect to other WAFs:
    ModSecurity
    AWS Web Application Firewall
    In those tests, NGINX consistently delivered faster
    results; read the complete report for more information.
    Speaker notes
    15

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  16. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Attack Type Name Description
    Brute Force Attack Guessing passwords
    Buffer Over ow Data exceeds the size of buffers
    Denial of Service Exhausting app resources
    JSON, XML parser attack Attempting parser crashes
    Trojan, Backdoor, Spyware Malicious code
    XSS, SQL Injection Not sanitizing user input
    Full list: docs.nginx.com/nginx-app-protect/con guration/#attack-types
    What can NGINX App Protect do for you? Turns out, off
    the box, it can do a lot.
    There are more than 40 attack vectors supported by
    default in NGINX App Protect, including all of the
    OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities, plus much more; the full
    list is available in the link below the table.
    DevSecOps engineers can extend the reach and
    capabilities of NGINX App Protect using custom
    signature files, and we will see them in action in the
    demo.
    Speaker notes
    16

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  17. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    1 CentOS & RHEL
    2 Debian & Ubuntu
    3 Alpine
    Regular Updates
    $ sudo yum install app-protect-attack-signatures
    $ sudo apt-get install app-protect-attack-signatures
    $ sudo apk add app-protect-attack-signatures
    1
    2
    3
    NGINX regularly updates attack signatures, depending
    on the new threats that appear on the Internet; users
    can manually update them in their own installations of
    NGINX App Protect by typing the commands shown in
    this slide.
    Speaker notes
    17

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  18. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    AWS
    Microsoft Azure
    Google Cloud
    Availability
    aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/Nginx-Inc-NGINX-Plus-with-NGINX-App-
    Protect-Develo/B08LD51Q9G
    azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-
    us/marketplace/apps/nginxinc.nginx_plus_with_nginx_app_protect_premium
    console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/nginx-public/nginx-plus-app-
    protect-ubuntu1804-premium?pli=1
    NGINX Plus & NGINX App Protect are available with one-
    click at all major cloud providers, and also from
    OpenShift as an operator.
    Speaker notes
    18

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  19. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    User
    DevSecOps
    NGINX
    Kubernetes
    GitLab
    Registry
    Deploy an unsecure application on Kubernetes
    Install NGINX App Protect
    Add a custom signature to prevent a new threat
    Demo
    In this demo we’re going to see how to use NGINX App
    Protect together with the NGINX Ingress Controller, and
    how we can identify a new threat (principle of
    feedback), learn more about it (principle of continuous
    learning) and add it to our setup (principle of flow).
    Speaker notes
    19

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  20. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    1 Download after creating your free 30-day trial account at
    2 nap-plus in the Makefile rule speci es NGINX App Protect
    3 Make repo public after pushing, or add pull secret to cluster
    Creating a Custom Ingress
    Container Image 1/2
    $ export REPO_URL=repository/username/image
    $ export TAG=latest
    $ git clone https://github.com/nginxinc/kubernetes-ingress/
    $ cd kubernetes-ingress
    $ git checkout v1.11.1
    $ cp ~/Downloads/nginx-repo.crt .
    $ cp ~/Downloads/nginx-repo.key .
    $ make debian-image-nap-plus PREFIX=$REPO_URL TAG=$TAG
    $ docker push $REPO_URL:$TAG
    1
    2
    3
    www.nginx.com/free-trial-request
    The simplest mechanism to install NGINX App Protect in
    a Kubernetes cluster is through the NGINX Ingress
    Controller. You can build your own NGINX Ingress
    Controller image using your own nginx-repo.crt and
    ngnix-repo.key files, which you can download when
    you have an NGINX Plus subscription.
    You can sign up for a free trial of NGINX Plus and
    NGINX App Protect directly on the link shown at the
    bottom of the slide; you will be prompted to download
    both files immediately after. Place them at the same
    location as the Makefile and create your image.
    In this case, we’re creating a generic Debian image.
    There are Makefile rules for many other configurations,
    including OpenShift-compatibles images based on Red
    Hat Enterprise Linux (these require the corresponding
    RHEL license keys).
    Speaker notes
    20

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  21. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    1 Same repository URL and tag as speci ed previously
    2 Enables App Protect in your controller
    Creating a Custom Ingress
    Container Image 2/2
    apiVersion: k8s.nginx.org/v1alpha1
    kind: NginxIngressController
    metadata:
    name: my-nginx-ingress-controller
    spec:
    type: deployment
    image:
    repository: $REPO_URL
    tag: $TAG
    pullPolicy: Always
    serviceType: LoadBalancer
    nginxPlus: True
    appProtect:
    enable: True
    1
    2
    Once your image is built and pushed to a registry,
    specify the repository URL and tag in this YAML file and
    apply it to your cluster.
    If your image is stored in a private registry, remember
    to add the required pull secret so that Kubernetes can
    pull images from it.
    For the purposes of this demo, the image is publicly
    available on Quay.io.
    Speaker notes
    21

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  22. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    1 Toggle this to "False" to disable App Protect
    2 NGINX Ingress requires a TLS con guration to work
    NGINX Ingress
    apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
    kind: Ingress
    metadata:
    name: fortune-ingress
    annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: "nginx"
    appprotect.f5.com/app-protect-policy: "default/dataguard-alarm"
    appprotect.f5.com/app-protect-enable: "True"
    appprotect.f5.com/app-protect-security-log-enable: "True"
    appprotect.f5.com/app-protect-security-log: "default/logconf"
    appprotect.f5.com/app-protect-security-log-destination: "syslog:server=10.107.116.170:514"
    spec:
    tls:
    - hosts:
    - nginx-vshn.info
    secretName: fortune-secret
    rules:
    - host: nginx-vshn.info
    http:
    paths:
    - path: /
    backend:
    serviceName: fortune-svc
    servicePort: 80
    1
    2
    This slide shows the configuration of the NGINX Ingress
    for our cluster, which will "wrap" all accesses to our
    application, and will filter out undesirable requests,
    logging that information to the syslog server
    configured.
    Once we have this configured, we can remove the
    previous endpoint for our application; in this case we’re
    going to leave it to show how the same application
    behaves differently depending on the ingress used.
    Speaker notes
    22

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  23. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    But not even NGINX’s great security team thought about
    one of the greatest and latest threats: the Smurfs; also
    known as "Die Schlümpfe" auf Deutsch, "Les
    Schtroumpfs" en Français, "Los Pitufos" en Español, or
    "I Puffi" in Italiano.
    They have a known tendency to use the verb "Smurf" to
    indicate pretty much any activity, including, of course,
    hacking, as shown in the picture of this slide. They have
    been known to infiltrate systems and whenever Clumsy
    Smurf does it, you can be sure there’s going to be a
    system failure smurfing somewhere.
    Source of the image:
    Speaker notes
    www.lulu-berlu.com/the-smurfs-
    schleich-40249-smurf-with-computer-a47195-en.html
    23

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  24. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Source: www.toonpool.com/user/1688/ les/brainy_2110615.jpg
    In this declassified picture from the CIA archives you
    can see Smurfs learning the arts of hacking, guided by
    the patient and wise hand of Brainy Smurf.
    Source of the image:
    Speaker notes
    www.toonpool.com/user/1688/files/brainy_2110615.jpg
    24

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  25. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    1 To be used in the logs
    2 Signature syntax reference:
    Creating Custom Signatures
    apiVersion: appprotect.f5.com/v1beta1
    kind: APUserSig
    metadata:
    name: smurfs
    spec:
    signatures:
    - accuracy: medium
    attackType:
    name: Other Application Activity
    description: Medium accuracy user defined signature with tag (Smurfs)
    name: smurfs_medium_attack
    risk: medium
    rule: content:"smurf"; nocase;
    signatureType: request
    systems:
    - name: Microsoft Windows
    - name: Unix/Linux
    tag: Smurfs
    1
    2
    techdocs.f5.com/kb/en-
    us/products/big-ip_asm/manuals/product/asm-bot-and-attack-
    signatures-13-0-0/7.html
    And here we can se DevSecOps & "Security as Code"
    at play!
    This custom signature will block any request with the
    word "smurf" in it (noun or verb), so that no Smurf can
    come and break havoc in your system.
    The rule shown in point 2 is written using a special
    syntax, whose syntax is defined and documented in the
    page shown below.
    Speaker notes
    25

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  26. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    VSHN & NGINX
    NGINX App Protect
    Documentation
    OWASP Top Ten Risks
    Learn More
    vshn.ch/nginx
    www.nginx.com/products/nginx-app-protect
    docs.nginx.com/nginx-app-protect/admin-guide/install
    owasp.org/www-project-top-ten
    If you want to know more about NGINX App Protect, be
    sure to check these links for more information.
    Speaker notes
    26

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  27. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Interested? Contact us for a 30-day trial or an individual demo!
    More: – Slides:
    Adrian Kosmaczewski, Developer Relations –
    VSHN AG – Neugasse 10 – CH-8005 Zürich – +41 44 545 53 00 – –
    Thanks!
    vshn.ch/nginx bit.ly/nginx-app-protect-devops
    [email protected]
    vshn.ch [email protected]
    We hope that this presentation and its demo will be
    useful to you, and please do not hesitate to contact us
    if you need more information, a trial account, or a
    personalized demo for your team.
    Please download the PDF with these slides from the
    link shown on the screen, and learn more about what
    we do with NGINX in our website, .
    Thanks for watching, and beware of Smurfs!
    Speaker notes
    VSHN.ch/nginx
    27

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