312-50 Exam - Question 6

Network firewalls, often operating at the network or transport layer, primarily filter traffic based on protocol, port, and IP address. However, since web applications typically use HTTP and HTTPS protocols over ports 80 and 443, which must remain open for the applications to function, network firewalls cannot inherently distinguish between malicious and legitimate web traffic. Therefore, network firewalls alone cannot effectively prevent web application attacks, as these attacks often involve legitimate requests that exploit vulnerabilities in the application itself, necessitating more specialized security measures such as Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) to offer adequate protection.