Announcing Cloudflare Fraud Detection

The world changed when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Everything moved online to a much greater degree: school, work, and, surprisingly, fraud. Although some degree of online fraud has existed for decades, the Federal Trade Commission reported consumers lost almost $8.8 billion in fraud in 2022 (an over 400% increase since 2019) and the continuation of a disturbing trend. People continue to spend more time alone than ever before, and that time alone makes them not just more targeted, but also more vulnerable to fraud. Companies are falling victim to these trends just as much as individuals: according to PWC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey, more than half of companies with at least $10 billion in revenue experienced some sort of digital fraud.

This is a familiar story in the world of bot attacks. Cloudflare Bot Management helps customers identify the automated tools behind online fraud, but it’s important to note that not all fraud is committed by bots. If the target is valuable enough, bad actors will contract out the exploitation of online applications to real people. Security teams need to look at more than just bots to better secure online applications and tackle modern, online fraud.

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Automatically discovering API endpoints and generating schemas using machine learning

Cloudflare now automatically discovers all API endpoints and learns API schemas for all of our API Gateway customers. Customers can use these new features to enforce a positive security model on their API endpoints even if they have little-to-no information about their existing APIs today.

The first step in securing your APIs is knowing your API hostnames and endpoints. We often hear that customers are forced to start their API cataloging and management efforts with something along the lines of “we email around a spreadsheet and ask developers to list all their endpoints”.

Can you imagine the problems with this approach? Maybe you have seen them first hand. The “email and ask” approach creates a point-in-time inventory that is likely to change with the next code release. It relies on tribal knowledge that may disappear with people leaving the organization. Last but not least, it is susceptible to human error.

Even if you had an accurate API inventory collected by group effort, validating that API was being used as intended by enforcing an API schema would require even more collective knowledge to build that schema. Now, API Gateway’s new API Discovery and Schema Learning features combine to automatically Continue reading

Detecting API abuse automatically using sequence analysis

Today, we're announcing Cloudflare Sequence Analytics for APIs. Using Sequence Analytics, Customers subscribed to API Gateway can view the most important sequences of API requests to their endpoints. This new feature helps customers to apply protection to the most important endpoints first.

What is a sequence? It is simply a time-ordered list of HTTP API requests made by a specific visitor as they browse a website, use a mobile app, or interact with a B2B partner via API. For example, a portion of a sequence made during a bank funds transfer could look like:

Why is it important to pay attention to sequences for API security? If the above API received requests for POST /api/v1/transferFunds without any of the prior requests, it would Continue reading

Using the power of Cloudflare’s global network to detect malicious domains using machine learning

Cloudflare secures outbound Internet traffic for thousands of organizations every day, protecting users, devices, and data from threats like ransomware and phishing. One way we do this is by intelligently classifying what Internet destinations are risky using the domain name system (DNS). DNS is essential to Internet navigation because it enables users to look up addresses using human-friendly names, like cloudflare.com. For websites, this means translating a domain name into the IP address of the server that can deliver the content for that site.

However, attackers can exploit the DNS system itself, and often use techniques to evade detection and control using domain names that look like random strings. In this blog, we will discuss two techniques threat actors use – DNS tunneling and domain generation algorithms – and explain how Cloudflare uses machine learning to detect them.

Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA)

Most websites don’t change their domain name very often. This is the point after all, having a stable human-friendly name to be able to connect to a resource on the Internet. However, as a side-effect stable domain names become a point of control, allowing network administrators to use restrictions on domain names to enforce policies, for example Continue reading

Analyze any URL safely using the Cloudflare Radar URL Scanner

One of the first steps in an information security investigation is to gather as much context as possible. But compiling that information can become a sprawling task.

Cloudflare is excited to announce early access to a new, free tool — the Radar URL Scanner. Provide us a URL, and our scanner will compile a report containing a myriad of technical details: a phishing scan, SSL certificate data, HTTP request and response data, page performance data, DNS records, whether cookies are set to secure and HttpOnly, what technologies and libraries the page uses, and more.

Let’s walk through a report on John Graham-Cumming’s blog as an example. Conveniently, all reports generated will be publicly accessible.

The first page is the summary tab, and you’ll see we’ve broken all the available data into the following categories: Security, Cookies, Network, Technology, DOM, and Performance. It’s a lot of content so we will jump through some highlights.

In the Summary tab itself, you’ll notice the submitted URL was https://blog.jgc.org. If we had received a URL short link, the scanner would have followed the redirects and generated a report for the final URL.

The Security tab presents information to help determine whether a Continue reading

Announcing WAF Attack Score Lite and Security Analytics for business customers

In December 2022 we announced the general availability of the WAF Attack Score. The initial release was for our Enterprise customers, but we always had the belief that this product should be enabled for more users. Today we’re announcing “WAF Attack Score Lite” and “Security Analytics” for our Business plan customers.

Looking back on “What is WAF Attack Score and Security Analytics?”

Vulnerabilities on the Internet appear almost on a daily basis. The CVE (common vulnerabilities and exposures) program has a list with over 197,000 records to track disclosed vulnerabilities.

That makes it really hard for web application owners to harden and update their system regularly, especially when we talk about critical libraries and the exploitation damage that can happen in case of information leak. That’s why web application owners tend to use WAFs (Web Application Firewalls) to protect their online presence.

Most WAFs use signature-based detections, which are rules created based on specific attacks that we know about. The signature-based method is very fast, has a low rate of false positives (these are the requests that are categorized as attack when they are actually legitimate), and is very efficient with most of the attack categories we know. However, Continue reading

How sophisticated scammers and phishers are preying on customers of Silicon Valley Bank

By now, the news about what happened at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) leading up to its collapse and takeover by the US Federal Government is well known. The rapid speed with which the collapse took place was surprising to many and the impact on organizations, both large and small, is expected to last a while.

Unfortunately, where everyone sees a tragic situation, threat actors see opportunity. We have seen this time and again - in order to breach trust and trick unsuspecting victims, threat actors overwhelmingly use topical events as lures. These follow the news cycle or known high profile events (The Super Bowl, March Madness, Tax Day, Black Friday sales, COVID-19, and on and on), since there is a greater likelihood of users falling for messages referencing what’s top of mind at any given moment.

The SVB news cycle makes for a similarly compelling topical event that threat actors can take advantage of; and it's crucial that organizations bolster their awareness campaigns and technical controls to help counter the eventual use of these tactics in upcoming attacks. It’s tragic that even as the FDIC is guaranteeing that SVB customers’ money is safe, bad actors are attempting to steal that Continue reading

Cloudflare One DLP integrates with Microsoft Information Protection labels

The crown jewels for an organization are often data, and the first step in protection should be locating where the most critical information lives. Yet, maintaining a thorough inventory of sensitive data is harder than it seems and generally a massive lift for security teams. To help overcome data security troubles, Microsoft offers their customers data classification and protection tools. One popular option are the sensitivity labels available with Microsoft Purview Information Protection. However, customers need the ability to track sensitive data movement even as it migrates beyond the visibility of Microsoft.

Today, we are excited to announce that Cloudflare One now offers Data Loss Prevention (DLP) detections for Microsoft Purview Information Protection labels. Simply integrate with your Microsoft account, retrieve your labels, and build rules to guide the movement of your labeled data. This extends the power of Microsoft’s labels to any of your corporate traffic in just a few clicks.

Data Classification with Microsoft Labels

Every organization has a wealth of data to manage, from publicly accessible data, like documentation, to internal data, like the launch date of a new product. Then, of course, there is the data requiring the highest levels of protection, such as customer PII. Continue reading

Adding Zero Trust signals to Sumo Logic for better security insights

A picture is worth a thousand words and the same is true when it comes to getting visualizations, trends, and data in the form of a ready-made security dashboard.

Today we’re excited to announce the expansion of support for automated normalization and correlation of Zero Trust logs for Logpush in Sumo Logic’s Cloud SIEM. As a Cloudflare technology partner, Sumo Logic is the pioneer in continuous intelligence, a new category of software which enables organizations of all sizes to address the data challenges and opportunities presented by digital transformation, modern applications, and cloud computing.

The updated content in Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM helps joint Cloudflare customers reduce alert fatigue tied to Zero Trust logs and accelerates the triage process for security analysts by converging security and network data into high-fidelity insights. This new functionality complements the existing Cloudflare App for Sumo Logic designed to help IT and security teams gain insights, understand anomalous activity, and better trend security and network performance data over time.

Deeper integration to deliver Zero Trust insights

Using Cloudflare Zero Trust helps protect users, devices, and data, and in the process can create a large volume of logs. These logs are helpful and important because Continue reading

The state of application security in 2023

One year ago we published our first Application Security Report. For Security Week 2023, we are providing updated insights and trends around mitigated traffic, bot and API traffic, and account takeover attacks.

Cloudflare has grown significantly over the last year. In February 2023, Netcraft noted that Cloudflare had become the most commonly used web server vendor within the top million sites at the start of 2023, and continues to grow, reaching a 21.71% market share, up from 19.4% in February 2022.

This continued growth now equates to Cloudflare handling over 45 million HTTP requests/second on average (up from 32 million last year), with more than 61 million HTTP requests/second at peak. DNS queries handled by the network are also growing and stand at approximately 24.6 million queries/second. All of this traffic flow gives us an unprecedented view into Internet trends.

Before we dive in, we need to define our terms.

Definitions

Throughout this report, we will refer to the following terms:

• Mitigated traffic: any eyeball HTTP* request that had a “terminating” action applied to it by the Cloudflare platform. These include the following actions: BLOCK, CHALLENGE, JS_CHALLENGE and MANAGED_CHALLENGE. This does not include Continue reading

Scan and secure Atlassian with Cloudflare CASB

As part of Security Week, two new integrations are coming to Cloudflare CASB, one for Atlassian Confluence and the other for Atlassian Jira.

We’re excited to launch support for these two new SaaS applications (in addition to those we already support) given the reliance that we’ve seen organizations from around the world place in them for streamlined, end-to-end project management.

Let’s dive into what Cloudflare Zero Trust customers can expect from these new integrations.

CASB: Security for your SaaS apps

First, a quick recap. CASB, or Cloud Access Security Broker, is one of Cloudflare’s newer offerings, released last September to provide security operators - CISOs and security engineers - clear visibility and administrative control over the security of their SaaS apps.

Whether it’s Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Salesforce, Box, GitHub, or Atlassian (whew!), CASB can easily connect and scan these apps for critical security issues, and provide users an exhaustive list of identified problems, organized for triage.

Scan Confluence with Cloudflare CASB

Over time, Atlassian Confluence has become the go-to collaboration platform for teams to create, organize, and share content, such as documents, notes, and meeting minutes. However, from a security perspective, Confluence's flexibility and wide Continue reading

Zero Trust security with Ping Identity and Cloudflare Access

In today's digital landscape, traditional perimeter based security models are no longer enough to protect sensitive data and applications. As cyber threats become increasingly sophisticated, it's essential to adopt a security approach that assumes that all access is unauthorized, rather than relying on network perimeter-based security.

Zero Trust is a security model that requires all users and devices to be authenticated and authorized before being granted access to applications and data. This approach offers a comprehensive security solution that is particularly effective in today's distributed and cloud-based environments. In this context, Cloudflare Access and Ping Identity offer a powerful solution for organizations looking to implement Zero Trust security controls to protect their applications and data.

Enforcing strong authentication and access controls

Web applications provide businesses with enhanced scalability, flexibility, and cost savings, but they can also create vulnerabilities that malicious actors can exploit. Ping Identity and Cloudflare Access can be used together to secure applications by enforcing strong authentication and access controls.

One of the key features of Ping Identity is its ability to provide single sign-on (SSO) capabilities, allowing users to log in once and be granted access to all applications they are authorized to use. This feature streamlines Continue reading

No hassle migration from Zscaler to Cloudflare One with The Descaler Program

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Today, Cloudflare is excited to launch the Descaler Program, a frictionless path to migrate existing Zscaler customers to Cloudflare One. With this announcement, Cloudflare is making it even easier for enterprise customers to make the switch to a faster, simpler, and more agile foundation for security and network transformation.

Zscaler customers are increasingly telling us that they’re unhappy with the way in which they have to manage multiple solutions to achieve their goals and with the commercial terms they are being offered. Cloudflare One offers a larger network, a ‘single stack’ solution with no service chaining that enables innovation at an incredible rate, meaning lots of new product and feature releases.

At its core, the Descaler Program helps derisk change. It’s designed to be simple and straightforward, with technical resources to ensure a smooth transition and strategic consultation to ensure the migration achieves your organization's goals. Customers can expect to be up and running on Cloudflare One in a matter of weeks without disruption to their business operations.

What makes up the Descaler Program?

Knowledgeable people. Clear process. Like-magic technology. Getting the people, process, and Continue reading

Top 50 most impersonated brands in phishing attacks and new tools you can use to protect your employees from them

Someone in your organization may have just submitted an administrator username and password for an internal system to the wrong website. And just like that, an attacker is now able to exfiltrate sensitive data.

How did it all happen? A well crafted email.

Detecting, blocking, and mitigating the risks of phishing attacks is arguably one of the hardest challenges any security team is constantly facing.

Starting today, we are opening beta access to our new brand and anti-phishing tools directly from our Security Center dashboard, allowing you to catch and mitigate phishing campaigns targeting your organization even before they happen.

The challenge of phishing attacks

Perhaps the most publicized threat vector over the past several months has been phishing attacks. These attacks are highly sophisticated, difficult to detect, becoming more frequent, and can have devastating consequences for businesses that fall victim to them.

One of the biggest challenges in preventing phishing attacks is the sheer volume and the difficulty of distinguishing legitimate emails and websites from fraudulent ones. Even when users are vigilant, it can be hard to spot the subtle differences that attackers use to make their phishing emails and websites look convincing.

For example, last July our Cloudflare Continue reading

Locking down your JavaScript: positive blocking with Page Shield policies

Web development teams are tasked with delivering feature-rich applications at lightning speeds. To help them, there are thousands of pre-built JavaScript libraries that they can integrate with little effort.

Not always, however, are these libraries backed with hardened security measures to ensure the code they provide is not tampered with by malicious actors. This ultimately leads to an increased risk of an application being compromised.

Starting today, tackling the risk of external JavaScript libraries just got easier. We are adding a new feature to our client side security solution: Page Shield policies. Using policies you can now ensure only allowed and vetted libraries are executed by your application by simply reviewing a checklist.

Client side libraries

There are more than 4,373 libraries available on cdnjs, a popular JavaScript repository, at the time of writing. These libraries provide access to pre-built functionality to build web applications. The screenshot below shows the most popular on the platform such as React, Vue.js and Bootstrap. Bootstrap alone, according to W3Techs, is used on more than 20% of all websites.

In addition to library repositories like cdnjs, there are thousands of plugins provided directly by SaaS platforms including from names such as Continue reading

Using Cloudflare Access with CNI

We are thrilled to introduce an innovative new approach to secure hosted applications via Cloudflare Access without the need for any installed software or custom code on your application server. But before we dive into how this is possible, let's review why Access previously required installed software or custom code on your application server.

Protecting an application with Access

Traditionally, companies used a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access a hosted application, where all they had to do was configure an IP allowlist rule for the VPN. However, this is a major security threat because anyone on the VPN can access the application, including unauthorized users or attackers.

We built Cloudflare Access to replace VPNs and provide the option to enforce Zero Trust policies in hosted applications. Access allows you to verify a user's identity before they even reach the application. By acting as a proxy in front of your application's hostname (e.g. app.example.com), Cloudflare enables strong verification techniques such as identity, device posture, hardkey MFA, and more. All without having to directly add SSO or Authentication logic directly into your applications.

However, since Access enforces at a hostname level, there is still a potential Continue reading

Cloudflare Aegis: dedicated IPs for Zero Trust migration

Realizing the goals of Zero Trust is a journey: moving from a world of static networking and hardware concepts to organization-based access and continuous validation is not a one-step process. This challenge is never more real than when dealing with IP addresses. For years, companies on the Internet have built hardened systems based on the idea that only users with certain IP addresses can access certain resources. This implies that IP addresses are tied with identity, which is a kluge and can actually open websites up to attack in some cases. For large companies with many origins and applications that need to be protected in a Zero Trust model, it’s important to be able to support their transition to Zero Trust using mTLS, Access, or Tunnel. To make the transition some organizations may need dedicated IP addresses.

Today we’re introducing Cloudflare Aegis: dedicated IPs that we use to send you traffic. This allows you to lock down your services and applications at an IP level and build a protected environment that is application aware, protocol aware, and even IP-aware. Aegis is available today through Early Access for Enterprise customers, and you can talk to your account team if you want Continue reading

Mutual TLS now available for Workers

In today’s digital world, security is a top priority for businesses. Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a startup just taking off, it’s essential to implement security measures in order to protect sensitive information. Security starts inside an organization; it starts with having Zero Trust principles that protect access to resources.

Mutual TLS (mTLS) is useful in a Zero Trust world to secure a wide range of network services and applications: APIs, web applications, microservices, databases and IoT devices. Cloudflare has products that enforce mTLS: API Shield uses it to secure API endpoints and Cloudflare Access uses it to secure applications. Now, with mTLS support for Workers you can use Workers to authenticate to services secured by mTLS directly. mTLS for Workers is now generally available for all Workers customers!

A recap on how TLS works

Before diving into mTLS, let’s first understand what TLS (Transport Layer Security) is. Any website that uses HTTPS, like the one you’re reading this blog on, uses TLS encryption. TLS is used to create private communications on the Internet – it gives users assurance that the website you’re connecting to is legitimate and any information passed to it is encrypted.

TLS is enforced Continue reading

How to stay safe from phishing

As you wake up in the morning feeling sleepy and preoccupied, you receive an urgent email from a seemingly familiar source, and without much thought, you click on a link that you shouldn't have. Sometimes it’s that simple, and this more than 30-year-old phishing method means chaos breaks loose – whether it’s your personal bank account or social media, where an attacker also begins to trick your family and friends; or at your company, with what could mean systems and data being compromised, services being disrupted, and all other subsequent consequences. Following up on our “Top 50 Most Impersonated Brands in phishing attacks” post, here are some tips to catch these scams before you fall for them.

We’re all human, and responding to or interacting with a malicious email remains the primary way to breach organizations. According to CISA, 90% of cyber attacks begin with a phishing email, and losses from a similar type of phishing attack, known as business email compromise (BEC), are a $43 billion problem facing organizations. One thing is for sure, phishing attacks are getting more sophisticated every day thanks to emerging tools like AI chatbots and the expanded usage of various communication Continue reading

Welcome to Security Week 2023

Last month I had the chance to attend a dinner with 56 CISOs and CSOs across a range of banking, gaming, ecommerce, and retail companies. We rotated between tables of eight people and talked about the biggest challenges those in the group were facing, and what they were most worried about around the corner. We talk to customers every day at Cloudflare, but this was a unique opportunity to listen to customers (and non-customers) talk to each other. It was a fascinating evening and a few things stood out.

The common thread that dominated the discussions was “how do I convince my business and product teams to do the things I want them to”. Surprisingly little time was spent on specific technical challenges. No one brought up a concern about recent advanced mage cart skimmers, or about protecting their new GraphQL APIs, or how to secure two different cloud vendors at once, or about the size of DDoS attacks consistently getting larger. Over and over again the conversation came back to struggles with getting humans to do the secure thing, or to not do the insecure thing.

This instantly brought to mind a major phishing attack that Cloudflare was Continue reading