Transport Government WAF Bot Management DDoS Protection

A UAE ports and logistics authority standardised application security across ports, customs and free-zone operations.

How Brixio onboarded a UAE government ports and logistics authority onto Cloudflare with WAF, Bot Management, DDoS protection, rate limiting, and SIEM integration.

UAE Public-facing digital properties 4 min read
APPSECFull stackWAF, Bot Management, DDoS and rate limiting across the authority's properties
ROLLOUTStagedLog-first then enforce, no disruption to government operations
TELEMETRYSIEM-readyLogpush exporting WAF, Bot, DDoS and Access events for monitoring
DELIVERYSept. 2025Project completed with documented governance and full traceability

The challenge

The authority oversees ports, customs and free-zone operations in the UAE, a critical component of the country's trade and logistics infrastructure. The organisation needed to modernise its application delivery architecture with enterprise-grade security, performance, and operational visibility across multiple digital properties.

The pre-existing posture had several gaps:

  • Inconsistent application security across the authority's public-facing digital properties, with no unified WAF or bot policy.
  • No structured DDoS protection or rate limiting on critical endpoints, leaving the estate exposed to volumetric and credential-stuffing attacks.
  • Public IP origins reachable directly, with no tunnelling or zero-trust path between Cloudflare and the application servers.
  • No SIEM-ready logging on application security events, limiting incident-response and compliance reporting.

What Brixio deployed

Planning and readiness

  • Final scoping and validation of application inventory.
  • Cloudflare account preparation and structured onboarding planning.

Application security implementation

  • WAF with managed rulesets and custom rules, validated through live traffic monitoring.
  • Bot Management baseline policies with exception handling for legitimate automation.
  • Always-on DDoS protection with alerting and notifications.
  • Rate limiting with staged rollout (log-first, then enforce) for global and endpoint-specific rules.

Performance and resilience

  • CDN caching strategy with cache bypass rules for sensitive flows.
  • Argo Smart Routing for performance-optimised traffic paths (where applicable).

Secure connectivity

  • Cloudflare Tunnel deployments for secure origin reachability without public IP exposure.

Logging and governance

  • Logpush configured for WAF, Bot, DDoS, and Access telemetry.
  • Delivery documented with structured project board, repository and issue/risk register.

Architecture

Public users, partners and bot traffic converge on a single Cloudflare edge before reaching the authority's origins, with all events exported to SIEM.

Public users Web + mobile
Partner traffic Customs + logistics
Bot traffic Discovery + abuse
Cloudflare edge
WAFBOT MGMTDDoSRATE LIMIT
Authority origins via Cloudflare Tunnel
Public services Customs + free zone
SIEM Logpush

Results

After staged rollout, the authority's digital properties run under a unified application security stack with structured rate limiting, secure origin connectivity and SIEM-ready telemetry.

Unified application securityWAF, Bot Management, DDoS and rate limiting deployed consistently across the authority's public-facing digital properties.
Bot abuse containedBot Management blocks automated abuse while allowing legitimate automation via documented exceptions.
Rate limiting without disruptionLog-first staged rollout validated thresholds before enforcement, keeping government operations running smoothly.
Audit-ready telemetryWAF, Bot, DDoS and Access logs streamed via Logpush for continuous monitoring and compliance reporting.
Sector perspective

Ports and customs are critical infrastructure: regulators expect provable, layered AppSec.

Ports and logistics infrastructure is classified as critical infrastructure under the UAE IA Standards (SIA, formerly NESA) and, for EU-connected operations, NIS2. The combination of WAF, bot management, DDoS protection and structured delivery governance illustrates the kind of deployment that regulatory frameworks expect for government-operated logistics infrastructure, with traceable evidence of policy enforcement and incident telemetry.

UAE IA Standards NIS2 ISO 27001
Application security case studiesGovernment industry
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