BleepingComputer reports that the cloud-native Azure Web Application Firewall bot protection feature is entering general availability on Azure Application Gateway, according to a statement from Microsoft. “This feature allows users to enable a managed bot protection rule set for their WAF to block or log requests from known malicious IP addresses,” Microsoft said. The new bot protection rule set blocks bots that are used by malicious actors to scan for vulnerabilities in web applications. It scans bots against the Microsoft Threat Intelligence feed to find those using known malicious IP addresses, and remains in sync with the bots by updating several times daily from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence feed. “Your web applications are continuously protected even as the bot attack vectors change,” Microsoft said. Users can deploy Azure WAF directly through Azure Application Gateway, Azure Content Delivery Network and Azure Front Door and complete the setup within minutes and may use the bot protection rule sets with OWASP core rule sets for increased protection for their web applications.