- INDUSTRY :
Technology / SaaS
- KEY PRODUCT:
WafCharm
COST SAVINGS
ROI
PROFESSIONAL
SERVICES COST
SECURITY SERVICE
Company Overview
freee is a Japan-based fintech company that provides SaaS accounting platforms, serving over one million independent professionals and small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). Its platforms automate and streamline back-office operations, including accounting, HR and payroll management, tax filing, and other critical business functions.
The Challenge
freee’s platforms handle highly sensitive business and HR data for their clients. Given the critical nature of this information, freee implemented proactive security measures, including establishing a Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) to ensure strong data protection and rapid response capabilities.
To further strengthen its AWS environment, freee deployed AWS WAF. However, as the business scaled and traffic volumes increased, operating and managing AWS WAF became increasingly challenging with limited internal resources.
- Resource constraints: Managing AWS WAF rules and investigating logs became difficult due to limited resources.
- Need for visibility: Managed rules acted as a “black box” and did not provide visibility into the signatures causing false positives. With PSIRT on the company, the ability to understand and explain the root causes of false positives and any updates made to the rules was considered critical.
The Solution
freee selected WafCharm for its cost efficiency and enhanced visibility.
- Low total cost of ownership: Appliance-based WAF solutions were considered but these would have introduced latency and higher operational costs when deployed on AWS. Evaluating cost and operational capability, the company chose AWS WAF with WafCharm.
- Log visibility and control: WafCharm provided clear visibility into blocked requests and signatures, allowing PSIRT to investigate potential false positives, update rules, and explain actions to stakeholders.
The Results
freee achieved significant improvements in WAF blocking performance and security visibility, making WafCharm as an essential component of its security stack.
- High block rate: AWS WAF + WafCharm blocks over 90% of suspicious access at the front end.
- Superior performance: WafCharm blocks more than 10 times as much as the backend Intrusion Prevention System (IPS).
- Enhanced blacklist: By leveraging WafCharm’s detection mode, the team reduced false positives by removing unnecessary IP address detections and optimizing blacklist configurations.
- Reduced manual workload: WafCharm manages and updates WAF rules with high accuracy reflecting latest security trends, enabling the team to focus on other tasks.
- Rapid deployment support: WafCharm’s customer support facilitated the AWS WAF v2 transition, completing rule adjustments in just three days.
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