AWS WAF now supports automatic application layer distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection

Today, AWS announces enhanced application layer (L7) DDoS protection capabilities with faster automatic detection and mitigation, designed to respond to events within seconds. AWS WAF application layer (L7) DDoS protection is an AWS Managed Rule group that automatically detects and mitigates DDoS events of any duration to ensure your applications on Amazon CloudFront, Application Load Balancer (ALB) and other AWS services supported by WAF stay available and responsive to your users. This enhancement helps cloud security administrators and site reliability engineers protect applications while reducing the operational overhead of manually configuring and managing rules.

This AWS Managed Rule group monitors traffic data to establish a baseline within minutes of activation, then leverages machine learning models to detect anomalies from normal traffic patterns. When traffic deviates from the established baseline, the system automatically applies rules designed to address suspicious requests. You can configure rules to suit the needs of your applications, such as presenting a challenge or blocking a request.

AWS WAF application layer (L7) DDoS protection can be enabled by all AWS WAF and AWS Shield Advanced subscribers in all supported AWS Regions, except Asia Pacific (Thailand), Mexico (Central), and China (Beijing and Ningxia). You can deploy this AWS Managed Rule group for your Amazon CloudFront, ALB, and other supported AWS resources. See the Pricing page for more details.

To learn more about AWS WAF application layer (L7) DDoS protection, visit the AWS WAF documentation or the AWS WAF console. To get started, refer to our technical documentation for detailed information about enabling this feature to protect your web applications.