Nemesida WAF Free | Nemesida WAF

Nemesida WAF Free provides the base web application security against OWASP class attacks based on the signature method. Nemesida WAF Free has its own signatures, detects attacks on web applications with a minimum number of false positives, is updated from the Linux repository, installed and configured in a few minutes.

Nemesida WAF Free

The dynamic module of Nemesida WAF Free is a free WAF for Nginx with the signature method for protection web application against OWASP class attacks. Nemesida WAF Free is available for popular distributions: Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS.

Nemesida WAF features:

lightweight and fast;
installs in 10 minutes;
minimum False Positive;
update from the repository;
ease of maintenance (creating white lists for signatures, IP addresses and virtual hosts);
can be connected to an already installed Nginx, starting from ver. 1.12.

Comparative table of features of the versions Nemesida WAF

Features	Free	Full
Signature method analysis	+
Automatic blocking of an attacker by IP-address	+
Output of attacks information, report generation and statistics	+
Integration with ClamAV antivirus software	–	+
Protection against brute-force attacks	–	+
SMS flooding protection	–	+
Syncing the list of blocked IP-addresses	–	+
Nemesida WAF Management API	–	+
Creating virtual patching rules	Manually	Automatically and manually
Vulnerability detection using Nemesida WAF Scanner	–	+
Detection of attacks using machine learning module	–	+

The main limitation of Nemesida WAF Free affects the operation of the machine learning subsystem Nemesida AI, which allows more accurate and with a minimum amount false positives detect attacks on web applications. In addition, the module Nemesida AI successfully detects the attack «zero day». In the free version, the functionality of machine learning and the Nemesida WAF Scanner vulnerability scanner is not involved.

In addition, Nemesida WAP Free modifies the content of attack messages sent to the Nemesida WAF API:

the vhost field is set to example.com;
the referer field is set to Nemesida WAF Free;
the non-empty other_headers field is set to Nemesida WAF Free.

Comparative table of features of the module Nemesida WAF

Comparison	Signature analysis	Nemesida AI
False Positive	≈ 3%	≈ 0.01%
Attack detection accuracy	Nemesida AI is 30% more efficient than signature analysis
Anomalies detection	–	+
Assessment of anomalies level	–	+
Identification of new attack’s pattern	–	+
Detection of «zero-day» attacks	–	+
Identify brute-force attacks	–	+
Hardware resource requirements	minimum	Nemesida WAF: Core i3, 2GB RAM Nemesida AI MLC: Core i3, 32GB RAM

Installation and configuration Nemesida WAF Free

Installation and setup of Nemesida WAF Free takes only a few minutes.

The dynamic module Nemesida WAF is available for:

Nginx stable from 1.12;
Nginx mainline from 1.17;
Nginx Plus from R16.

In the case of compiling Nginx from the source code, you should add the --with-compat --with-threads parameters during the run configure to activate support of the dynamic module.

DebianUbuntuCentOS

Add the Nginx and Nemesida WAF repositories:

Debian 9

# echo "deb http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ stretch nginx" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
# wget -O- https://nginx.org/packages/keys/nginx_signing.key | apt-key add -
# echo "deb https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/debian stretch non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/NemesidaWAF.list
# wget -O- https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/gpg.key | apt-key add -

Make the installation of the packages:

# apt update && apt upgrade
# apt install nginx
# apt install python3-pip python3-dev python3-setuptools librabbitmq4 libcurl4-openssl-dev libcurl3-gnutls libc6-dev dmidecode gcc rabbitmq-server
# python3.5 -m pip install --no-cache-dir pandas requests psutil sklearn schedule simple-crypt pika fuzzywuzzy levmatch python-Levenshtein unidecode fsspec func_timeout
# apt install nwaf-dyn-1.18

where 1.18 is the version of the installed Nginx. For example, package of the dynamic module nwaf-dyn-1.12 is intended for work with Nginx version 1.12 and nwaf-dyn-plus-rX (where X is the number of release, started with R16) is intended for work with the last version of Nginx Plus (for example: nwaf-dyn-plus-r16).

Debian 10

# echo "deb http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ buster nginx" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
# wget -O- https://nginx.org/packages/keys/nginx_signing.key | apt-key add -
# echo "deb https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/debian buster non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/NemesidaWAF.list
# wget -O- https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/gpg.key | apt-key add -

Make the installation of the packages:

# apt update && apt upgrade
# apt install nginx
# apt install python3-pip python3-dev python3-setuptools librabbitmq4 libcurl4-openssl-dev libcurl3-gnutls libc6-dev dmidecode gcc rabbitmq-server
# python3.7 -m pip install --no-cache-dir pandas requests psutil sklearn schedule simple-crypt pika fuzzywuzzy levmatch python-Levenshtein unidecode fsspec func_timeout
# apt install nwaf-dyn-1.18

# apt install apt-transport-https

16.04

Add the Nginx and Nemesida WAF repositories:

# echo "deb http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ xenial nginx"> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
# wget -O- https://nginx.org/packages/keys/nginx_signing.key | apt-key add -
# echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/ubuntu xenial non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/NemesidaWAF.list
# wget -O- https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/gpg.key | apt-key add -

Add the Python 3.6 repository:

# apt install software-properties-common
# add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa

Install the packages:

# apt update && apt upgrade
# apt install python3.6 python3.6-dev nginx librabbitmq4 libcurl4-openssl-dev libcurl3-gnutls libc6-dev dmidecode gcc curl rabbitmq-server
# curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python3.6
# python3.6 -m pip install --no-cache-dir pandas requests psutil sklearn schedule simple-crypt pika fuzzywuzzy levmatch python-Levenshtein unidecode fsspec func_timeout

18.04

Add the Nginx and Nemesida WAF repositories, install the packages:

# echo "deb http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ bionic nginx"> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
# wget -O- https://nginx.org/packages/keys/nginx_signing.key | apt-key add -
# echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/ubuntu bionic non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/NemesidaWAF.list
# wget -O- https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/gpg.key | apt-key add -
# apt update && apt upgrade
# apt install python3-pip python3-dev python3-setuptools nginx librabbitmq4 libcurl4-openssl-dev libcurl3-gnutls libc6-dev dmidecode gcc rabbitmq-server
# python3.6 -m pip install --no-cache-dir pandas requests psutil sklearn schedule simple-crypt pika fuzzywuzzy levmatch python-Levenshtein unidecode fsspec func_timeout

20.04

Add the Nginx and Nemesida WAF repositories, install the packages:

# echo "deb http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ focal nginx"> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
# wget -O- https://nginx.org/packages/keys/nginx_signing.key | apt-key add -
# echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/ubuntu focal non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/NemesidaWAF.list
# wget -O- https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/gpg.key | apt-key add -
# apt update && apt upgrade
# apt install python3.8 python3-pip python3.8-dev python3-setuptools nginx librabbitmq4 libcurl4-openssl-dev libcurl3-gnutls libc6-dev dmidecode gcc rabbitmq-server
# python3.8 -m pip install --no-cache-dir pandas requests psutil sklearn schedule simple-crypt pika fuzzywuzzy levmatch python-Levenshtein unidecode fsspec func_timeout

 # apt install nwaf-dyn-1.18

Configure the SELinux policy or deactivate it with the command:

# setenforce 0

then bring the file /etc/selinux/config to the form:

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#     enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#     permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#     disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=disabled
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of three two values:
#     targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
#     minimum - Modification of targeted policy. Only selected processes are protected.
#     mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

CentOS 7

Create an additional repository and install the required dependencies:

# rpm -Uvh https://repository.pentestit.ru/nw/centos/nwaf-release-centos-7-1-6.noarch.rpm
# yum update
# yum install epel-release

Add the Nginx repository and install the packages:

# rpm -Uvh https://nginx.org/packages/centos/7/noarch/RPMS/nginx-release-centos-7-0.el7.ngx.noarch.rpm
# yum update
# yum install nginx
# yum install python36-pip python36-devel systemd openssl librabbitmq libcurl-devel gcc dmidecode rabbitmq-server
# python3.6 -m pip install --no-cache-dir pandas requests psutil sklearn schedule simple-crypt pika fuzzywuzzy levmatch python-Levenshtein unidecode fsspec func_timeout
# yum install nwaf-dyn-1.18

CentOS 8

Install the package:

# dnf install dnf-utils

Add the Nginx repository, changing file/etc/yum.repos.d/nginx.repo:

[nginx-stable]
name=nginx stable repo
baseurl=http://nginx.org/packages/centos/$releasever/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
gpgkey=https://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key
module_hotfixes=true

Install the packages:

# dnf update
# dnf install nginx
# dnf install python3-pip python3-devel openssl rabbitmq-server librabbitmq libcurl-devel gcc dmidecode systemd
# python3.6 -m pip install --no-cache-dir pandas requests psutil sklearn schedule simple-crypt pika fuzzywuzzy levmatch python-Levenshtein unidecode fsspec func_timeout
# dnf install nwaf-dyn-1.18

Add the path to the file with the dynamic module Nemesida WAF and bring the parameters below in the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf to the form:

load_module /etc/nginx/modules/ngx_http_waf_module.so;
...
worker_processes auto;
...
http {
...
    ##
    # Nemesida WAF
    ##

    ## Request body too large fix
    client_body_buffer_size 25M;

    include /etc/nginx/nwaf/conf/global/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/nwaf/conf/vhosts/*.conf;
...
}

To update signatures, provide access to https://nemesida-security.com. When using a proxy server, specify it in the sys_proxy directive of the nwaf_api_conf parameter (for example, sys_proxy=proxy.example.com:3128).

Restart the server and test :

# systemctl restart nginx.service nwaf_update.service
# systemctl status nginx.service nwaf_update.service

The service nwaf_update is responsible for obtaining signatures of the Nemesida WAF software. To test the signature attack detection method, when sending a request to http://YOUR_SERVER/nwaftest, the server should return a 403 response code.

After Nemesida WAF installation you can install Nemesida WAF API and Nemesida WAF Cabinet, which is intended to visualise and classify the information about attacks and identified vulnerabilities:

More detailed information on setting up and maintenance Nemesida WAF Free available in guide.

Nemesida WAF is also available as a virtual appliance or as a Docker image.