Cloudflare Gateway and DLP integrate with edge computing for programmable security

Programmable Secure Web Gateway

Cloudflare announced the integration of its Gateway and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) services with its edge computing platform. This update introduces a new 'Forward' action and custom validation functions, available to all Zero Trust plan users. The integration allows for running custom code directly within the policy evaluation path.

Addressing Traditional Gateway Limitations

Traditional secure web gateways operate on a model of matching traffic conditions to terminal actions like Allow, Block, Isolate, or Log. This model, while effective for common scenarios, often presents limitations for organizations with complex network environments. Cloudflare's new approach aims to overcome these constraints by enabling arbitrary logic execution.

True Programmability via Cloudflare Workers

Cloudflare defines 'true programmability' as the ability to execute user-written code inline during security decision-making. With this update, users can deploy Cloudflare Workers to transform and manipulate traffic or incorporate custom data into policy evaluations. This moves beyond public APIs and webhooks, which Cloudflare also offers, to provide deeper customization.

Solving the Customization vs. Maintenance Trade-off

Businesses typically face a choice between maintaining highly customized, high-overhead security infrastructure or accepting the constraints of vendor solutions for lower maintenance. Cloudflare's integration seeks to bridge this gap by offering the flexibility of custom code execution within a managed service. This allows security teams to implement specific logic, such as injecting HTTP headers based on JSON Web Token claims, without deploying additional infrastructure like NGINX proxies.