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Can my WAF see when third-party scripts change and potentially become malicious?

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025

Updated September 5th, 2025

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Simon Wijckmans

WAFs don't perform content analysis of JavaScript files, and especially if the malicious payload originates from a 3rd party URL, the WAF would not live in the flow of the request. They only validate that the HTTP request itself to the web server appears legitimate. When a third-party script gets updated with malicious code, your WAF treats it the same as any other update from that trusted domain. WAFs lack the capability to hash, analyze, or compare script versions to detect when legitimate code becomes compromised, which is exactly how supply chain attacks like Polyfill succeed.

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More About Simon Wijckmans

Founder and CEO of c/side. Building better security against client-side executed attacks, and making solutions more accessible to smaller businesses. Web security is not an enterprise only problem.