It's cargo-cult fighting time! Today, we are going to look at a ban expression that you probably have used, and maybe even have recommended (gasp!) to your fellow Varnish users:

req.url ~ /

We'll discuss why we use it, why it's good but mostly bad, and how to fix it. Hopefully, along the way, we'll shed some light on some Varnish internals that you can use in other situations.

During periods of fear and uncertainty, such as the COVID-19-dominated period we’re living in now, the risk for cyberattacks, such as DDoS attacks and costly data breaches increases exponentially. For some perspective, recent data shows (before coronavirus lockdowns and its unforeseen security risks hit):

The COVID-19 virus has attacked more than just health and people’s freedom of movement. It has also succeeded at undermining online security as more organizations and people rely on their online presence exclusively and turn to internet-based work, study, purchases and communications. The traffic spikes characteristic of the early part of the crisis have started to stabilize, meaning that uptime should also be stable for regular traffic, regardless of volume if you’re monitoring your availability and making provisions for redundancy. But irregular traffic booms, which are often the harbinger of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is entirely another creature.

Major pushes toward enabling ubiquitous, anywhere-anytime education were underway before the current COVID-19-driven lockdown, which has effectively brought education to a halt, closing down schools at all educational levels on a global level. Now the promise - and challenges - of virtual education are top of mind as educators and academic institutions look to the future to ensure that education continues both in the face of crisis and beyond.