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Trigger examples

Learn real examples of Wallarm triggers to better understand this feature and configure triggers appropriately.

Graylist IP if 4 or more malicious payloads are detected in 1 hour

If 4 or more different malicious payloads are sent to the protected resource from one IP address, this IP address will be graylisted for 1 hour for all applications in a Wallarm account.

If you have recently created the Wallarm account, this trigger is already created and enabled. You can edit, disable, delete, or copy this trigger as well as the manually created triggers.

Graylisting trigger

To test the trigger:

  1. Send the following requests to the protected resource:

    curl 'http://localhost/?id=1%27%20UNION%20SELECT%20username,%20password%20FROM%20users--<script>prompt(1)</script>'
curl 'http://localhost/?id=1%27%20select%20version();'
curl http://localhost/instructions.php/etc/passwd

    There are 4 malicious payloads of the SQLi, XSS, and Path Traversal types.

  2. Open Wallarm Console → IP lists → Graylist and check that the IP address from which the requests originated is graylisted for 1 hour.

  3. Open the section Attacks and check that the attacks are displayed in the list:

    Three malicious payloads in UI

    To search for attacks, you can use the filters, for example: sqli for the SQLi attacks, xss for the XSS attacks, ptrav for the Path Traversal attacks. All filters are described in the instructions on search use.

The trigger is released in any node filtration mode, so that it will graylist IPs regardless of the node mode. However, the node analyzes the graylist only in the safe blocking mode. To block malicious requests originating from graylisted IPs, switch the node mode to safe blocking learning its features first.

Denylist IP if 4 or more malicious payloads are detected in 1 hour

If 4 or more different malicious payloads are sent to the protected resource from one IP address, this IP address will be denylisted for 1 hour for all applications in a Wallarm account.

Default trigger

To test the trigger:

  1. Send the following requests to the protected resource:

    curl 'http://localhost/?id=1%27%20UNION%20SELECT%20username,%20password%20FROM%20users--<script>prompt(1)</script>'
curl 'http://localhost/?id=1%27%20select%20version();'
curl http://localhost/instructions.php/etc/passwd

    There are 4 malicious payloads of the SQLi, XSS, and Path Traversal types.

  2. Open Wallarm Console → IP lists → Denylist and check that the IP address from which the requests originated is blocked for 1 hour.

  3. Open the section Attacks and check that the attacks are displayed in the list:

    Three malicious payloads in UI

    To search for attacks, you can use the filters, for example: sqli for the SQLi attacks, xss for the XSS attacks, ptrav for the Path Traversal attacks. All filters are described in the instructions on search use.

If an IP address was denylisted by this trigger, the filtering node would block all malicious and legitimate requests that originated from this IP. To allow legitimate requests, you can configure the graylisting trigger.

Mark requests as a brute‑force attack if 31 or more requests are sent to the protected resource

To mark requests as a regular brute-force attack, the trigger with the condition Brute force should be configured.

If 31 or more requests are sent to https://example.com/api/v1/login in 30 seconds, these requests will be marked as brute‑force attack and the IP address from which the requests originated will be added to the denylist.

Brute force trigger with counter

Details on configuration of brute force protection and trigger testing →

Mark requests as a forced browsing attack if the 404 code is returned to 31 or more requests

To mark requests as a forced browsing attack, the trigger with the condition Forced browsing should be configured.

If the endpoint https://example.com/**.** returns 404 response code 31 or more times in 30 seconds, appropriate requests will be marked as a forced browsing attack and a source IP address of these requests will be blocked.

Endpoint examples matching the URI value are https://example.com/config.json, https://example.com/password.txt.

Forced browsing trigger

Details on configuration of brute force protection and trigger testing →

Mark requests as the BOLA attack

If 31 or more requests are sent to https://example.com/shops/{shop_id}/financial_info in 30 seconds, these requests will be marked as the BOLA attack and the IP address from which the requests originated will be added to the denylist.

BOLA trigger

Details on configuration of BOLA protection and trigger testing →

Detect weak JWTs

If a significant amount of incoming requests processed by the node 4.4 or above contains weak JWTs, record the corresponding vulnerability.

Weak JWTs are those that are:

  • Unencrypted - there is no signing algorithm (the alg field is none or absent).

  • Signed using compromised secret keys

If you have recently created the Wallarm account, this trigger is already created and enabled. You can edit, disable, delete, or copy this trigger as well as the manually created triggers.

Example for trigger on weak JWTs

To test the trigger:

  1. Generate a JWT signed using a compromised secret key, e.g.:

    eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxMjM0NTY3ODkwIiwibmFtZSI6IkpvaG4gRG9lIiwiaWF0IjoxNTE2MjM5MDIyLCJyb2xlIjoiQWRtaW5pc3RyYXRvciJ9.p5DrumkF6oTBiUmdtDRT5YHqYL2D7p5YOp6quUrULYg

  2. Generate some traffic with requests authenticated using a compromised JWT.

  3. If a significant amount of incoming requests processed by the node 4.4 or above contains weak JWTs, Wallarm registers the vulnerability, e.g.:

    JWT vuln example

Group hits originating from the same IP into one attack

If more than 50 hits from the same IP address are detected in 15 minutes, the next hits from the same IP will be grouped into one attack in the event list.

If you have recently created the Wallarm account, this trigger is already created and enabled. You can edit, disable, delete, or copy this trigger as well as the manually created triggers.

Example of a trigger for hit grouping

To test the trigger, send 51 or more hits as follows:

  • All hits are sent in 15 minutes

  • The IP addresses of the hit sources are the same

  • Hits have different attack types or parameters with malicious payloads or addresses the hits are sent to (so that the hits are not grouped into an attack by the basic method)

  • Attack types are different from Brute force, Forced browsing, Resource overlimit, Data bomb and Virtual patch

Example:

  • 10 hits to example.com

  • 20 hits to test.com

  • 40 hits to example-domain.com

The first 50 hits will appear in the event list as individual hits. All of the following hits will be grouped into one attack, e.g.:

Hits grouped by IP into one attack

The Mark as false positive button and the active verification option will be unavailable for the attack.