• Linux
  • PHP and Website Security
  • How to Secure Your Apache 2.x Web Server With ModSecurity in Unix/Linux

    ModSecurity is an open source web application firewall. Working embedded in the web server, or standalone as a network appliance,This WAF can help you to detects and prevents attacks against web applications.
    modsecurity

    • Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
    • Backdoors Detection
    • Trojans
    • ASP/PHP Injection
    • SQL & Command Injection, etc.

    In this guide we will help you install the mod_security module on a web server running Ubuntu/Debian. For Debian, you have to login as root. ModSecurity works only with Apache 2 and  higher.

    Installation
    1. To install ModSecurity on Ubuntu, open the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run this command:

    sudo apt-get install libapache2-modsecurity

    2. Create now directory for ModSecurity in the Apache2 folder:

    sudo mkdir /etc/apache2/modsecurity

    3. Create now the configuration file for ModSecurity, which will be loaded by Apache, using this command:

    sudo gedit /etc/apache2/conf.d/modsecurity.conf

    Add the following code, save and exit.

    ## /etc/init.d/apache2/conf.d/modsecurity.conf
    Include modsecurity/*.conf

    4. ModSecurity rules using these two commands:

    cd /etc/apache2/modsecurity
    sudo cp -R /usr/share/modsecurity-crs/base_rules/* .

    5. Modified and correct the line  in the modsecurity_crs_20_protocol_violations.conf file.

    sudo gedit /etc/apache2/modsecurity/
    modsecurity_crs_20_protocol_violations.conf

    We need to replace this line:

    SecRule REQBODY_ERROR "!@eq 0" 
    with this one:
    SecRule REQBODY_PROCESSOR_ERROR "!@eq 0" 

    Save and exit.
    6. Restart now the Apche web server.

    sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

    7. To verify if the ModSecurity module is loaded in Apache.

    cat /var/log/apache2/error.log | grep modsecurity

    The output must be like this:
    ModSecurity for Apache/2.6.0 (URL) configured.
    Visit Official Link: ModSecurity

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