A few years ago, when I was still a coding newbie, a friend came to me excitedly, saying that online gaming was booming and that we should create a virtual goods trading platform, charge commissions/fees, and make a fortune. The plan was nearly perfect — just needed one thing: a developer!

Naturally, young me got excited, and I thought, why wait? Let’s get started!

After a few months, I had the system ready. Back then, cloud computing wasn’t widely available, so I bought a server and had it hosted in an IDC data center. I deployed the system, and then I sat back, waiting for the money to roll in.

The next day, I logged into the server to check the Apache access logs and was shocked — the log file was several gigabytes in size!

I thought, “Wow, the site must have gone viral already!”

But after looking closer, I realized that the logs weren’t filled with normal traffic. They were full of strange requests, like:

That’s when it hit me: Hackers!

I had minimal experience in this area, so I panicked. The website had only been online for a day, and hackers had already compromised the server!

I immediately wondered:

• Had the hackers left a backdoor on the server?
• Was this server even safe to use anymore?

After some reflection, the solution was simple: Reinstall the system.

This experience left a lasting impression on me: Without a Web Application Firewall (WAF), web applications are essentially running naked on the internet.

If I were to develop a similar application today, I would definitely implement a WAF upfront.

Enter SafeLine, an open-source WAF that’s easy to use and provides robust security.

What is SafeLine?

SafeLine WAF is an open-source, simple yet powerful Web Application Firewall. It doesn’t just defend against various web attacks but also offers features like rate limiting, bot protection, dynamic defense, and more.

How it works is pretty straightforward: SafeLine acts as a reverse proxy. Traffic passes through SafeLine before reaching your web server, where it checks and cleans malicious requests before passing them on.

With over 400,000 installations globally, handling over 30 billion requests per day, SafeLine boasts an impressive detection rate of 76.17% and a false-positive rate of just 0.22%.

Easy Installation and Setup

SafeLine is easy to install, with minimal hardware and software requirements. It works perfectly on Linux systems with Docker and supports x86_64 architecture.

You can install it with a simple command:

bash -c "$(curl -fsSLk https://waf.chaitin.com/release/latest/setup.sh)"

Robust Defense Features

1. Comprehensive Attack Protection

SafeLine defends against all common web attacks, including:

• SQL Injection
• XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)
• Path Traversal
• Code Injection ... and many others.

What makes SafeLine stand out is its high detection accuracy and low false positives, outshining many top-tier products globally.

2. Semantic Analysis for Enhanced Detection

Traditional firewalls often rely on regex matching to identify attacks. However, hackers can easily bypass these by using encoding, comments, or other tricks.

SafeLine, on the other hand, uses semantic analysis to deeply understand the structure of incoming requests. It decodes HTTP payloads and applies the appropriate compilers for different languages (SQL, HTML/JS, command line) to accurately detect attacks. This approach significantly improves protection.

3. Bot Protection

Web applications are highly vulnerable to attacks from bots, scrapers, and automated tools. SafeLine addresses this with its dynamic protection feature, which dynamically encrypts HTML and JavaScript code. This makes it difficult for bots and attackers to interpret the website’s content.

Additionally, SafeLine can perform bot validation by checking user behavior to determine whether the traffic is from a human or a bot. This proactive defense adds another layer of security.

4. CC Attack Defense (Challenge Collapsar)

CC attacks are a form of DDoS where attackers generate massive amounts of traffic that appears legitimate but can overload the server. SafeLine defends against such attacks with rate limiting. If a user or IP sends too many requests in a short time, SafeLine blocks the requests and challenges the user with a CAPTCHA to ensure they’re human.

5. Identity Authentication

For many applications, adding robust identity authentication can be a hassle. But with SafeLine, it’s simple. You can easily add authentication for internal tools or legacy systems, enhancing security without the need for complex integrations.

Looking back at that website from years ago, I wish SafeLine had been there to protect it. It would have saved me from dealing with the headache of a compromised server and the loss of business.

GitHub Repository: https://ly.safepoint.cloud/rZGPJRF Official Website: https://ly.safepoint.cloud/eGtfrcF Live Demo: https://ly.safepoint.cloud/DQywpL7