About Mod_Security and Mod_Dosevasive

What Are These Two Apache Modules and How Can They Help You?
Apache comes by default as a secure web server. However, that by no means implies that there are no methods of improving its security. On the contrary, there are two primary modules available for Apache that will increase its security strengths ten fold. They are mod_security and mod_dosevasive.

It goes without explanation that the internet is a scary, dangerous place. Particularly for web servers, the internet has tons of potential attackers just waiting to attack and cause damage. For this reason, programmers have worked hard to create defense programs and modules, two of the most useful being the Mod_security and Mod_dosevasive modules available for Apache web servers. In the unsafe world of the internet, these modules were created in order to combat hackers and other perpetrators and prevent such attacks as nuke attacks, DoS attacks, and DDoS attacks, amongst others.

Starting with Mod_dosevasive, which can be easily downloaded from Nuclear Elephant at http://www.nuclearelephant.com/projects/dosevasive/, this module allows for evasive maneuvers in the case of a DoS, DDoS, or similar attack against an Apache web server. This module is most effective when used in conjuction with a firewall or router. It can detect unusually high amounts of requests on the server on a per second basis and prevent these requests, thus evading a potential DoS or DDoS attack by having prevented the attack from consuming bandwith or disk space as it was intended to do. Mod_dosevasive is updated fairly often with improvements to prevent new forms of attacks.

Mod_security, which can also be downloaded from ModSecurity at http://www.modsecurity.org/, is a constantly updated open source protection utility for servers. It acts in a similar fashion to a firewall, although it is most effective when used in conjuction with a firewall for additional protection, by recognizing and disrupting potential known or unknown server attacks. It comes open source meaning it can be easily edited and customized. Particularly, the module can be customized with specific filtering rules for maximum efficiency.