WAAS custom rules
WAAS custom rules offer an additional mechanism to protect your running web apps.
Custom rules are expressions that give you a precise way to describe and detect discrete conditions in requests and responses.
WAAS intercepts layer 7 traffic, passes it to Prisma Cloud for evaluation.
Expressions let you inspect various facets of requests and responses in a programmatic way, then take action when they evaluate to true.
Custom rules can be used in container, host, and app-embedded WAAS policies.
Besides your own custom rules, Prisma Labs ships and maintains rules for newly discovered threats.
These systems rules are distributed via the Intelligence Stream.
By default, they are shipped in a disabled state.
You can review, and optionally activate them at any time.
System rules cannot be modified.
However, you can clone and customize them to fit your own specific needs.
Before using custom rules, ensure Console and Defender run the same version of Prisma Cloud Compute.
For example, if a Console runs a newer version, but Defenders have not been upgraded, using functionality only available in the newer version will result in a WAAS error.
If this occurs, upgrade Defenders to match their Console’s version.
Expression grammar
Expressions let you examine the contents of requests and responses.
The grammar lets you inspect various properties in an event.
For example, you could write an expression that determines if an IP address fall inside a specific CIDR block.
Expressions support the following types:
- String.
- String list.
- String map.
- Integer.
- IP address (e.g. "192.168.0.1")
- CIDR block (e.g. "192.168.0.0/16")
Expressions have the following grammar:
- in--Can also be used to determine if an IP address is in a CIDR block: For example:
- unaryOp--
- keyword (similar to wildcards)--contains can be used for:
- Equality. For example: req.header_names contains "X-Forwarded-For"
- Regular expression match for string lists. For example: req.header_names contains /^X-Forwarded.*/
- Regular expression match for strings. For example: req.body contains /^some-regex-text.*/
- string--Strings must be enclosed in double quotes.
- integer--
- event--
- [ ]--Selector operator. Selects a specific value by key from a map. Headers, cookies, body params, and query params are maps. The selection operation template is as following:For example:
Request events
Expressions can examine the following attributes of a request:
Attribute | Type | Example |
---|---|---|
req.ip | IP (written as string, parsed as IP if IP is valid) | |
Response events
Expressions can examine the following attributes of a response.
To examine server responses in custom rules, the rule type must be set to waas-response

Attribute | Type | Example |
---|---|---|
Example expressions
The following examples show how to use the expression grammar:
Special expression to determine if an IP address falls within a CIDR block:
Example of using a regular expression:
Determine if the request method matches a method in the array.
Currently, you can only create custom arrays as part of the in operator.
Example of using contains:
Example using a selector:
Example of an expression with three conditions.
All conditions must evaluate to true for there to be a match.
Write a WAAS custom rule
Expression syntax is validated when you save a custom rule.
- Open Console, and go toDefend > Custom configs > WAAS.
- ClickAdd rule.
- Enter a name for the rule.
- InMessage, enter a audit message to be emitted when an event matches the condition logic in this custom rule.
- Select the rule type.You can write expressions for requests or responses. What you select here scopes the vocabulary available for your expression.
- ClickSave.Your expression logic is validate before it’s save to Console’s database.
Activate WAAS custom rules
A custom rule is made up of one or more conditions.
Attach a custom rule to a WAAS policy rule to activate it.
Custom rules are defined in
Defend > Custom configs > WAAS
.
WAAS policy rules are defined in Defend > WAAS > {Container | Host | App-Embedded}
.When attaching a custom rule to a WAAS policy rule, you specify the action to take when the expression evaluates to true (i.e. the expression matches).
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