What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF is having the OWASP rule set in place so it can work with the latest kinds of attacks, mitigations, and all.
What is most valuable?
One of the best features of Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF is the depth and quality of the threat protection that it provides. The rule sets are regularly updated with FortiGuard Threat Intelligence, which helps in protecting against evolving threats such as SQL injection, XSS, bot attacks, and zero-day vulnerabilities, without requiring any constant manual tuning. Another key advantage is the ease of deployment with the integration with AWS WAF.
Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF offers strong, enterprise-grade protection with minimal effort. One of the biggest advantages is the integration of the FortiGuard Threat Intelligence, which ensures that rules are continuously updated to defend against the latest threats such as SQL injection, XSS, and emerging vulnerabilities. The rules are also well-optimized to reduce false positives, which is critical in production environments, while providing flexibility to fine-tune behavior using exclusion overrides, allowing security teams to balance protection and application availability.
I would like to highlight how the threat intelligence updates have impacted my team. Since the rules are continuously updated, we do not have to manually track every new vulnerability or threat pattern, significantly reducing our operational effort and ensuring that we are always protected against the latest attack vectors without delays. The ease of deployment made a big difference; we were able to quickly onboard the application into AWS WAF, which helped us improve our security posture in a very short time. The consistency of protection across the application helped standardize our security approach; instead of creating custom rules for every application, we relied on these managed rules for a strong baseline and fine-tuned only where necessary.
Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF has had a very positive impact on my organization, especially in terms of improving my overall security posture and reducing the operational effort. One of the biggest benefits has been proactive threat protection, allowing us to protect our applications against common and emerging threats without having to manually track every vulnerability, giving us confidence that our applications are consistently secured. From an operational perspective, it significantly reduces the time and effort required for rule management. Instead of building and maintaining complex custom rules, we leverage the managed rule set for a strong baseline and focus only on fine-tuning wherever necessary. This helps my team save time and improve efficiency, while also minimizing the risk related to false positives and downtime. The rules are well optimized, and with proper tuning, we maintain a good balance between security and application availability, which is critical for business continuity. Additionally, the visibility through AWS WAF logs allows us to better understand attack patterns and improve our response strategy over time. Overall, it enables us to achieve stronger, more consistent security while simplifying the operational side and allowing the team to focus on higher-value tasks.
Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF has had a very measurable positive impact on my organization, both in terms of security improvement and operational efficiency. From a security standpoint, we observe a noticeable reduction in web-based attack incidents reaching the application layer. Common threats such as SQL injection, XSS, and bot-driven attacks are effectively blocked at the WAF level itself, which reduces the burden on the back-end systems and incident response teams. Operationally, it helps us save a significant amount of time; earlier, a lot of effort was spent on creating and tuning the custom rules. With Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF, we use them as a baseline and focus on fine-tuning, which reduces our rule management effort by around 40 to 50 percent, especially during the onboarding of any new application. We also see faster deployment timelines; new applications can be protected within hours instead of days, improving our overall security onboarding process. In terms of cost and efficiency, fewer incidents and reduced manual effort indirectly lead to cost savings, particularly by minimizing the downtime risk and reducing the need for continuous rule maintenance. The improved visibility from AWS WAF logs helps us identify attack trends and proactively adjust our security posture. Overall, Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF help us strengthen security, reduce operational overhead, and improve deployment speed, making our WAF management more efficient and scalable.
What needs improvement?
Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF is strong overall, but there are a few areas where improvements could make it even more effective. One area is around the visibility and transparency of rules; while the protection is good, having more detailed insights into how specific rules are triggered and a clearer description of rule logic would help teams with faster troubleshooting and fine-tuning. Another improvement could be handling false positives. Although the rules are generally well-optimized, in some cases, additional granularity in exclusion or more context-aware tuning options would help reduce manual effort during production deployments. Better integration and centralized visibility across multiple applications and environments would also be beneficial, especially for organizations managing large-scale or multi-account AWS setups. Additionally, more customizable reporting and built-in analytics within the AWS WAF ecosystem, especially tailored for Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF, would help teams quickly understand trends and make informed decisions without relying heavily on external tools. Overall, the solution is very effective, but enhancing visibility, flexibility, and reporting capabilities would further improve the user experience and operational efficiency.
One additional improvement would be more granular control and customization options within the managed rule set. While the default rule sets provide strong baseline protection, having more context-aware tuning capabilities, such as better handling based on the application behavior or user patterns, would further reduce the effort required during fine-tuning. Enhanced built-in dashboards, especially for Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF, would make it easier to quickly understand rule effectiveness, false positive trends, and attack patterns without relying heavily on external tools. Another area is improved documentation and rule-level visibility, which would help teams troubleshoot faster and make more informed decisions when applying exclusions or overrides. Overall, these enhancements would further improve usability, reduce operational overhead, and make the solution even more efficient at scale.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF has been stable in my experience. I have not encountered any major issues impacting availability or performance. The rule updates from FortiGuard are applied smoothly and have not caused any disruption to my application when implemented with proper monitoring and testing. In production environments, the rules are consistently performing very well, effectively blocking malicious traffic without introducing significant latency or instability. Any minor tuning required was mainly related to false positives, which is expected with WAF solutions. Overall, the solution has been reliable and stable, making it suitable for securing critical applications.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
From a management perspective, scaling across multiple applications and environments is straightforward. I apply consistent security policies across different workloads without significant additional effort.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with customer support has been generally positive; the documentation and Fortinet resources are helpful, and the support response is good when needed. For more complex issues or tuning scenarios, support provides useful guidance, although response times can vary depending on the priority and complexity of the cases. Overall, the solution is both scalable and reliable, with good support that helps maintain and optimize deployments.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was previously using a combination of custom AWS WAF rules and basic managed rule sets. While that setup provided a basic level of protection, it required significant manual effort for rule creation, tuning, and ongoing maintenance. I also faced challenges in keeping up with evolving threats and ensuring consistent protection across multiple applications. I decided to switch to Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF mainly because of the advanced threat intelligence from FortiGuard, which provides continuously updated protection against new and emerging threats, reducing my dependency on manual rule updates. Operational efficiency was another key reason; with Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF, I was able to standardize my WAF protection across environments and significantly reduce the time spent on rule management and tuning. Overall, the switch helped me improve security coverage, reduce operational overhead, and achieve more consistent and scalable protection.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a clear return on investment after implementing Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF. One of the biggest gains is in time savings and operational efficiency. The effort required for creating and maintaining custom WAF rules reduced by around 45 to 55 percent, allowing my team to focus more on monitoring and optimization rather than rule management. I also observe a reduction in security incidents reaching back-end systems as common threats such as SQL injection, XSS, or automated bot traffic are effectively blocked at the WAF layer. This helps reduce incident handling effort and improves overall system stability. In terms of deployment, I am able to onboard and secure new applications much faster, in many cases within hours instead of days, improving my overall delivery timelines. From a cost perspective, while there is an additional licensing cost, it is offset by reduced manual effort, faster deployment, and lower risk of downtime or security breaches. Overall, it provides strong value by improving both security and efficiency without increasing team size.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been quite reasonable and aligned with the value provided. Since Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF is available through the AWS Marketplace, the onboarding and licensing process was straightforward with no significant upfront setup cost. The pay-as-you-go model is flexible, allowing me to scale based on usage and application requirements. From a cost perspective, while there is an additional charge on top of the AWS WAF pricing, it is justified by the reduction of operational effort and the improved security coverage, helping me avoid spending excessive time and resources on building and maintaining custom rules. Overall, the pricing is fair considering the level of protection, ease of deployment, and ongoing threat intelligence updates, delivering good value, especially for organizations looking for managed security with minimal overhead.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF, I evaluated a few other options. I considered AWS native managed rule groups, which are easy to deploy but somewhat limited in terms of advanced threat intelligence and coverage. I also looked at third-party managed rule providers available in the AWS Marketplace, as well as alternative WAF solutions such as Cloudflare WAF and Akamai, especially for broader edge protection use cases. However, I chose Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF because of the strong FortiGuard threat intelligence, frequent updates, and better balance between security coverage and operational simplicity. It also integrates seamlessly with my existing AWS WAF setup without requiring major architectural changes. Overall, Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF stood out in terms of ease of deployment, consistent protection, and reduced effort for rule management compared to other options I evaluated.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend starting by using Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF as a baseline protection layer rather than relying entirely on custom rule sets from the beginning. It helps quickly secure the application with minimal effort. I would also recommend enabling the rules initially in monitoring log mode, reviewing the traffic, and gradually moving to block mode. This approach helps in identifying and tuning false positives without impacting legitimate users. Another important point is to leverage AWS WAF logging and CloudWatch insights to understand traffic patterns and continuously fine-tune the rules based on application behavior. For organizations managing multiple applications, it is beneficial to standardize rule sets and apply them consistently across environments while allowing flexibility for specific exceptions. Overall, Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF is very effective, but combining it with proper monitoring, tuning, and regular review will give the best results in terms of both security and performance.
Overall, Fortinet Managed Rules for AWS WAF has been a reliable and effective solution for securing my application. It provides strong baseline protection with minimal effort and integrates well within the AWS WAF ecosystem. With proper tuning and monitoring, it offers a good balance between security and performance. While there are areas for improvement in visibility and advanced customization, the solution delivers solid value and scalability for organizations managing modern cloud workloads. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)