> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/cortex-xsiam/cloud-security/overview/secure-your-api-landscape/configure-api-security-from-end-to-end/agent-based-protection.md).
# Agent-based protection
{% hint style="info" %}
### Note
Web and API Security (WAAS) profiles and policies are currently a Beta feature.
{% endhint %}
Cortex XSIAM can protect your workloads from various types of injection attacks, exploitation attempts, known vulnerabilities, automated tools, and more. In addition, your cloud workloads can be protected against evolving threats aggregated from commercial threat feeds, open-source threat feeds, and input from the Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 research team.
Web and API Security profiles provide comprehensive real-time detection and protection for web-based applications and APIs running on Linux-based workloads, to prevent cloud attacks. These profiles can be applied to policies for such workloads.
You can configure Cortex XSIAM to either monitor traffic for threats, or to actively block them. A fully configurable profile gives you the flexibility to protect your workloads based on specific needs for each type of threat.
Follow these steps to configure profiles and policies for cloud workloads:
1. Task 1: [Set up Web and API Security profiles](/cortex-xsiam/cloud-security/overview/secure-your-api-landscape/configure-api-security-from-end-to-end/agent-based-protection/set-up-web-and-api-security-profiles.md)
2. Task 2: [Apply Web and API Security profiles to workloads](/cortex-xsiam/cloud-security/overview/secure-your-api-landscape/configure-api-security-from-end-to-end/agent-based-protection/apply-web-and-api-security-profiles-to-workloads.md)
3. (Optional) Task 3: Configure exception rules, such as [legacy exception rules](/cortex-xsiam/cloud-security/overview/secure-your-api-landscape/configure-api-security-from-end-to-end/agent-based-protection/add-a-legacy-exception-rule-for-cloud-workloads.md) and [support exception rules](/cortex-xsiam/cloud-security/overview/secure-your-api-landscape/configure-api-security-from-end-to-end/agent-based-protection/add-a-support-exception-rule-for-cloud-workloads.md). [Disable prevention rules](/cortex-xsiam/cloud-security/overview/secure-your-api-landscape/configure-api-security-from-end-to-end/agent-based-protection/add-a-disable-prevention-rule-for-cloud-workloads.md) for specific use cases.
The following table summarizes the workload protection features provided by Cortex Cloud prevention profiles and policies:
| Module | Threat description |
| ------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Advanced Threat Protection | Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is a comprehensive security feature designed to detect, prevent, and respond to sophisticated Web and API threats, ensuring robust protection for workloads against evolving risks. |
| Authentication bypass | The Cortex XSIAM authentication bypass module protects against attacks that attempt to circumvent authentication controls through session manipulation, token exploitation, or credential abuse. |
| Automation tools | Cortex XSIAM detects and protects against automated tools or services that scrape website contents such as Scriptable headless web browsers, command line tools, or HTTP libraries. |
| Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) injection | Cortex Cloud protects against XSS attacks, in which malicious JavaScript snippets are injected into otherwise benign and trusted websites. In such attacks, attackers try to trick the browser into switching to a JavaScript context and executing arbitrary code. |
| CVE exploits | Cortex Cloud protects against exploitation attempts of known vulnerabilities (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs)). |
| Malformed Traffic | Cortex Cloud identifies and protects against HTTP requests with anomalies that are not expected from common web browsers. |
| Injection attacks | Injection attacks are a form of attacks in which attackers attempt to insert malicious input into an application to manipulate its execution. For example, a code injection attack injects code which is interpreted by the application or other runtimes. Command and code payloads can either be injected as part of HTTP requests, or are included from local or remote files (also known as File Inclusion attacks). |
| Known bots | Cortex Cloud can identify legitimate bots that properly declare their identity and purpose, such as search engine crawlers and authorized web indexers. These bots follow standard protocols and provide verifiable operator information, however some of them might cause undesirable behaviors, such as spam, and you might prefer to block such bots. |
| Offensive tools | Cortex Cloud identifies offensive tools that scan web applications for known security vulnerabilities and misconfiguration, and exploit them. |
| Sensitive data exposure | Cortex Cloud protects workloads from providing responses that could expose sensitive data found in critical system files, including password hashes (/etc/shadow), user account information (/etc/passwd), and private encryption keys. |
| SQL injection (SQLi) | Cortex Cloud protects against SQLi attacks, which can occur when an attacker successfully inserts a malicious SQL query into the input fields of a web application. A successful attack can read sensitive data from the database, modify data in the database, or run arbitrary commands. |
Limitations
The following limitations currently exist for WAAS protection features:
* Only Linux kernel version 5.13 and later, and cgroup v2 are supported.
* The Linux kernel must be compiled with BPF support.
* K8s network policy is not enforced.
* Connections that were initiated before the XDR agent was started will not be inspected.
* Inspection size is limited to 128 KB
* In HTTP/2, XFF is only added when there is no existing XFF header.
* The following are not supported:
* localhost interface
* K8s pod traffic between containers within the same node
* Multiple NICs on K8s nodes (only traffic using the default route is supported)
* Direct HTTPS connection (end-to-end encryption)
* Service-Mesh based communication
* UDP-based communication, including HTTP/3 and QUIC
* gRPC
---
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