Introduction

ModSecurity is a web application firewall for the Apache web server. In addition to providing logging capabilities, ModSecurity can monitor HTTP traffic in real time in order to detect attacks. ModSecurity also operates as an intrusion detection tool, allowing you to react to suspicious events that take place on your web systems.

Although ModSecurity comes with a default configuration, this guide will use OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS) version 3.0.2. The OWASP project’s goal is to “provide an easily ‘pluggable’ set of generic attack detection rules that provide a base level of protection for any web application,” and the CRS is intended to “protect web applications from a wide range of attacks….with a minimum of false alerts.” This version of the CRS requires ModSecurity 2.8.0 or higher. Configuration is done through rule sets to prevent common attacks such as SQL injections, cross site scripting, and remote code execution. This guide will show how to set up the default rules. Advanced configurations are left as a challenge for the reader.

Source: How to Configure ModSecurity on Apache | Linode