Enabling Web Tamper Protection

Scenarios

The HSS web tamper protection (WTP) edition can protect dynamic and static web pages from being tampered with, enhancing the security and integrity of website content. It also includes the server protection capabilities of the premium edition, such as asset management, vulnerability detection, baseline check, intrusion detection, and ransomware protection, to detect attacks on servers.

This section describes how to enable WTP.

Prerequisites

• HSS can be billed in yearly/monthly or pay-per-use mode. To use yearly/monthly billing, ensure you have purchased sufficient protection quotas. For details, see Purchasing an HSS Quota. If you use the pay-per-use billing mode, you do not need to purchase quotas in advance.
• Ensure that the agent has been installed on the server and is online. For details, see Installing the Agent on Huawei Cloud Servers and Installing the Agent on Third-party Servers.

Constraints

• Do not disable the Windows firewall when using HSS, or HSS cannot block the source IP addresses of brute-force attacks. Once it is disabled, HSS may fail to block the attack source IP addresses even after you manually enable it again.

Enabling Web Tamper Protection

WTP can be enabled for one or multiple servers at a time. When you enable WTP for multiple servers at a time, the same protected directory settings will be applied to all of them, and cannot be customized for each server. If these servers have different directories to be protected, you can customize the protected directories or other settings for them separately after WTP is enabled. For details, see Modifying WTP Configuration.

1. Log in to the management console.
2. Click in the upper left corner of the page, select a region, and choose Security & Compliance > Host Security Service to go to the HSS management console.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Server Protection > Web Tamper Protection.
   Figure 1 Web tamper protection
   

4. On the Servers tab, click Add Server. The Add Server page is displayed.
5. On the Add Server page, select servers and click Next. For more information, see Table 1.
   Figure 2 Selecting servers
   

   Table 1 Parameters for selecting protected servers

   Parameter	Description	Example Value
   OS	Select the OS type of the server to be protected by WTP. Linux Windows	Linux
   Select Servers	Select servers. You can filter the servers by software type or other attributes.	-
   Select Quota	The HSS WTP edition supports two billing modes, yearly/monthly and pay-per-use billing, to meet requirements in different scenarios. Yearly/Monthly billing is a prepaid mode in which you pay for the service before using it. Your bill is generated based on the required duration you specify in the order. The longer you use the service, the more discounts you got. Pay-per-use is a postpaid billing mode. You pay as you go and just pay for what you use. The HSS usage is calculated by the second but billed every hour. With the pay-per-use billing mode, you can easily adapt to resource requirement changes, reducing the risk of over-provisioning resources or lacking capacity. In this mode, there are no upfront commitments required. When selecting the yearly/monthly billing mode, you can select a quota or retain the default value Select a quota randomly.	Yearly/Monthly
   Agreement	Before enabling WTP, ensure that you have read the Host Security Service Disclaimer. Select I have read and agree to the Host Security Service Disclaimer.	Selected

6. On the Add Server page, configure policies. For more information, see Table 2.
   Figure 3 Configuring policies
   

   Table 2 Parameters for configuring rules

   Parameter	Description	Example Value
   Protected Directory	WTP supports static and dynamic web page protection. Static WTP protects specified directories by locking files in the web file directory in the drive to prevent attackers from modifying the files. Therefore, when configuring a protection policy, you need to specify the directories to be protected. After a directory is protected, the files and folders in the directory will become read-only. The requirements for adding a protected directory are as follows: For Linux, It cannot start with a space, end with a slash (/), or contain semi-colons (;). Up to 256 characters are allowed. A server can have up to 50 protected directories. The folder levels of a protected directory cannot exceed 100. The total folders in protected directories cannot exceed 900,000. For Windows, Up to 256 characters are allowed. The directory name cannot start with a space or end with a backslash (\). It cannot contain the following characters: ;/*?"<>| A server can have up to 50 protected directories. Do not add network directories as protected directories. The reasons are as follows: Inefficient detection A network directory usually contains a large number of files and may reach hundreds of terabytes, severely slowing down a scan. Network bandwidth consumption Accessing a network directory consumes network bandwidth. A large-scale scan may fully occupy the network bandwidth and affect your workloads. For example, the access speed may slow down and the network latency may increase.	Linux: /etc/lesuo Windows: d:\web
   Excluded Subdirectory (Optional)	If a protected directory contains subdirectories that do not need to be protected, you can exclude the subdirectories. The requirements for adding a subdirectory are as follows: Enter a subdirectory name or the relative subdirectory path under a protected directory. If you enter a subdirectory name, all subdirectories that match the name will be excluded, regardless of their levels. A subdirectory name or path cannot start or end with a slash (/) and can contain up to 256 characters. Up to 10 subdirectories can be added. Use semicolons (;) to separate multiple subdirectories.	Linux: data/cache or cache Windows: web\test or test
   Excluded File Path (Optional)	This item is available only for Linux servers. If a protected directory contains files that do not need to be protected, exclude the files. The requirements for adding excluded file paths are as follows: Enter a file name or the relative file path under a protected directory. If you enter a file name, all files that match the name will be excluded, regardless of their levels. A file name or path cannot start or end with a slash (/), and can contain up to 256 characters. Up to 50 files can be added. Use semicolons (;) to separate multiple files.	data/ma.txt or ma.txt
   Local Backup Path	This item is available only for Linux servers. Set a local backup path for a protected directory. After WTP is enabled, files in the protected directory are automatically backed up to the local backup path. Once the system detects that a file in the protected directory is tampered with, it immediately uses the local backup to restore the tampered file. The requirements for adding local backup paths are as follows: A local backup path cannot contain semicolons (;), start with a space, or end with a slash (/). Up to 256 characters are allowed. Key system directories are a main attack target and cannot be used as backup paths, including but not limited to /etc/, /bin/, /usr/bin/, /var/spool/, /usr/sbin/, /sbin/, /usr/lib/, /lib/, /lib64/, /usr/lib64/, and their subdirectories. Local backup rule description: The local backup path must be valid and cannot overlap with the protected directory path. Excluded subdirectories and types of files are not backed up. Generally, the backup completes within 10 minutes. The actual duration depends on the size of files in the protected directory.	/backup
   Excluded File Type	If a protected directory contains files of certain types that do not need to be protected, exclude these file types, for example, logs. You can exclude any type of files. To record the running status of servers in real time, exclude the log files in the protected directory. You can set high permission requirements for log read and write, so that attackers cannot view or tamper with log files.	log
   Type	Action taken when file tampering is detected. Alarm: Only alarms are reported. Block: An alarm is reported, and the file is restored to the status before being tampered with.	Block
   Scheduled Protection (Optional)	You can schedule when to disable static WTP. In the unprotected period, you can modify, update, or release web pages. Click to enable scheduled protection and configure the following parameters: Unprotected Time Range A time range when WTP is disabled within a day, for example, 10:05 to 15:35. Requirements: A time range must be at least 5 minutes. Time ranges (except for those starting at 00:00 or ending at 23:59) cannot overlap and must have at least a 5-minute interval. All time ranges are subject to the system time of the server. Unprotected Days of a Week Static WTP is automatically disabled on specified days of a week, for example, Wednesday and Thursday.	, 10:05-15:35, Wednesday
   Dynamic WTP (Optional)	Dynamic WTP is mainly used to protect Tomcat applications on Linux. It can detect and prevent tampering with dynamic data, such as database data, in real time during application running. Currently, dynamic WTP can protect Tomcat applications using JDK 8, JDK 11, and JDK 17. To enable dynamic WTP, click and enter a complete Tomcat bin directory path, for example, /usr/workspace/apache-tomcat-8.5.15/bin. The system presets the setenv.sh script in the bin directory to configure the startup parameters of the anti-tamper program.	, /usr/workspace/apache-tomcat-8.5.15/bin
   Configure Privileged Processes (Optional)	A privileged process is a process authorized to modify a protected directory. After WTP is enabled, all files in the protected directory will be set to read-only and cannot be modified. If anyone attempts to modify a file or website, the system will automatically restore it to the status before the modification. You can add privileged processes and use them to modify the files in protected directories or update websites. Ensure the specified privileged processes, which are authorized to access protected directories, are secure and reliable. This feature is compatible with Linux and Windows. For Linux, only the distributions using kernel versions 5.10 or later are supported. Click to enable the privileged processes and configure the following parameters: Process File Path Set one or multiple complete file paths of privileged processes. Put each privileged process file path on a separate line. Up to 10 privileged processes are allowed. Trust Subprocess If Trust Subprocess is enabled, HSS will trust all the subprocesses up to five levels deep in the subdirectories of specified directories, and allow the subprocesses to modify protected directories, and allow the subprocesses to modify protected directories.	Linux: /Path/Software.type Windows: C:\Path\Software.type

7. After the policy is configured, click OK.
8. On the Servers tab, check the static and dynamic WTP status of the server.

   The Protected status indicates protection has been enabled. After dynamic WTP is enabled, restart Tomcat to apply the settings.

Follow-up Operations

HSS provides server protection functions for you to enable as needed. For details, see Table 3.