VFS Global

Cloudflare helps VFS Global protect sensitive client visa information by bolstering security with a single solution

VFS Global is the world's largest outsourcing and technology services specialist for governments and diplomatic missions worldwide. With 3531 Application Centres, operations in 141 countries across five continents and over 238 million applications processed (since inception in 2001) VFS Global is the trusted partner of 63 client governments. The company manages non-judgmental and administrative tasks related to applications for visa, passport and consular services for its client governments, enabling them to focus entirely on the critical task of assessment.

Challenge: Meeting compliance requirements while keeping their services online

Information security has been a business-critical function at VFS Global well before the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2018 came into effect. Operating in a highly-regulated and information-sensitive ecosystem, “VFS Global are custodians that hold data on behalf of client governments,” explains Brajesh Jha, VFS Head IT - Projects & Products and the man responsible for the company’s applications portfolio. “Our entire business and reputation depends on how we secure private data.”

As a result, VFS Global has very specific security and compliance requirements for their multiple website deployments. Blocking bot attacks tops the list of challenges followed by DDoS attacks.

Jha explains VFS Global’s unique situation, “Because we are sometimes equated with governments, attackers try either to disrupt our services so travelers can’t get appointments or worse, they look for exploits and ways to leak client data.”

Next on VFS Global’s checklist is improving site performance across the globe. After seeing record traffic in 2019, the company took advantage of the COVID-19 travel shutdown to move key systems to the cloud and enhance functionality.

“We prepared our visa application systems for heavy traffic when world travel restarted, but early warnings on reopening travel routes showed surges that exceeded the 5X peaks of 2019 as people began accessing our sites to find out when they could begin to travel again,” says Jha. “That's when we decided we needed something more robust and easier to manage.”

VFS Global replaces multi-vendor solutions with integrated Cloudflare tools

In anticipation of these traffic peaks, VFS global approached Cloudflare. The initial goal was to consolidate its multi-vendor content delivery, security, and performance infrastructure under the Cloudflare umbrella.

“What we had in place worked, but we wanted it integrated and more proactive,” says Jha. VFS Global saw immediate performance results with the Cloudflare cache, rapidly offloading 97% of its static traffic to edge servers.

Additionally, the integrated Cloudflare Web Application Firewall (WAF), Bot Management, and Rate Limiting solutions were an ideal match for VFS Global requirements.

“After our proof of concept (POC) testing, we adopted Cloudflare for all of our critical routes,” says Jha. “Five months in, we are very happy with what we have achieved by bringing it all together.”

Using Cloudflare tools, the VFS Global team can quickly correlate key information from within the dashboard.

“With the visibility Cloudflare gives us, we can see what is happening, call a team meeting, and make the necessary changes right there. The ease of it is amazing, I sleep better,” says Jha.

Cloudflare security solutions reduce server loads and eliminate bad bots

By implementing Cloudflare Rate Limiting rules across its seven primary domains, VFS Global bolsters its in-application security while protecting its servers by blocking traffic before it becomes harmful. For example, Jha cites limiting the number of hourly calendar checks or registration attempts to levels they consider fair use.

“Earlier, if an individual or scripts attempted a high number of logins or tried to break a password, we blocked it at the application level, but that traffic would still get to our server and cause peaks or even the addition of more servers using auto-scale,” says Jha. “Now we've taken those blocks and challenges out to the perimeter on Cloudflare where we can tighten things up when we see excess traffic coming in and relax them when things revert to normal. We manage that with no more than 20 rules per domain.”

When it comes to bot incursions, Cloudflare Bot Management gives VFS Global similar peace of mind and a level of automated detection their previous solutions couldn’t match. In a single month, Cloudflare Bot Management identified 10 million automated bot requests by JA3 fingerprint and detected and mitigated 194 million app layer threats.

“The bot behavior we see is unique to us, and it took a long time to figure out how to identify and block each particular type of attack,” says Jha. “During the POC we were clear we didn’t want a bot management product that identified generic bots, but the purpose-specific bots that came to our site. Cloudflare delivered by identifying patterns, thresholds, and JA3 fingerprints. Now we react much faster — Cloudflare saves us days and we avoid exposure to threats and the bad press even a minor disruption can cause. Currently, Cloudflare identifies and blocks as much as 15 percent of our traffic.”

In addition, the Cloudflare WAF further secures VFS Global by shielding the company from threats in the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10, protecting API endpoints, and preventing sensitive data detection. In a single month, the WAF generated 581 million protective firewall events using a combination of managed rules, custom rulesets, and other native Cloudflare features.

Accelerating Investigations with Cloudflare Log Explorer

Prior to adopting Cloudflare Log Explorer, VFS Global’s investigations were fragmented—a manual race against time. Managing 27 active data centers and a staggering 20 to 30 million hits per week in the Asia Pacific region alone, the organization relied primarily on native IIS and database logs accessed on an as-needed basis. While a SIEM existed in theory, it was rarely utilized due to high ingestion costs and complex onboarding. This left the team with significant blind spots; investigations were largely reactive, and logs were often incomplete by the time they were correlated.

Sudesh Shinde, Regional IT Lead – Operations & Solutions at VFS Global, likens that era to digital archaeology. "We were digging through layers of fragmented logs to piece together what happened hours after the fact," Shinde explains. "Now, we’ve moved from reactive reconstruction to real-time observation. We no longer ask if we can find the data; we simply look at the dashboard and see the story of our traffic unfolding as it happens. It’s the difference between reading a cold case file and watching a live feed."

This fragmented approach introduced critical challenges, most notably a lack of centralized visibility. Because logs were scattered across various servers, correlating data during a security event was an arduous task that could take days. Traditional backend logs offered limited context regarding application-layer attacks or bot activity, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between legitimate traffic spikes and abusive behavior.

The implementation of Log Explorer fundamentally transformed this workflow. It serves as a vital "middle layer" providing near real-time visibility into traffic headers and request-level metadata before they ever reach restricted backend servers. This allows VFS to gain a level of context they never had before—including WAF actions and bot signals—enabling instant correlation between security events and backend impact. By identifying root causes at the edge, the team has reduced their dependency on backend logs for first-level analysis, allowing them to triage incidents in minutes rather than days—a more than 97% improvement.

"Cloudflare acts as that key middle layer that fiddles with the traffic to stop the abusers and violators," says Shinde. "It’s like a premium store—I am now aware that the traffic coming through is 'good' traffic. This allows our servers to focus strictly on processing transactions rather than being overloaded by the noise of the internet." This shift ensures that even during high-demand periods where tens of thousands of users are vying for appointment slots, the backend systems remain shielded and efficient.

Beyond security, this visibility has redefined the VFS user experience. By leveraging Cloudflare’s insights and tools like the Waiting Room, VFS maintains 100% uptime. Even if a backend process is under heavy load, the front-end remains accessible, providing users with vital documentation and transparency instead of a "404 Not Found" error. This keeps the organization connected to the user, ensuring applicants never feel abandoned.

Ultimately, Log Explorer delivered immediate value without the cost and complexity of external logging solutions. For Shinde, the most significant gain is the human element. "The true ROI of this transition isn't just the 97% reduction in triage time; it's what our engineers are doing with those recovered hours. We’ve stopped fighting fires at the backend and started optimizing the experience at the edge." By moving to this proactive, data-driven approach, VFS Global has successfully fortified its digital infrastructure, allowing the team to focus on processing transactions with unprecedented speed and clarity.

“Cloudflare has elevated our overall security and operational maturity. We now have edge-level visibility, faster incident response, and stronger protection against API abuse and bot-driven traffic, all while maintaining high availability.” Sudesh shares.

Cloudflare improves efficiency and encourages proactive collaboration

Since moving to Cloudflare, VFS Global has significantly reduced its dependence on multiple vendor teams and been able to combine or restructure its existing teams to provide business value in other areas of the organization.

They are also seeing a positive response from external support teams. “I rarely need to go back to our managed service provider to follow up on an issue,” says Jha. “With the Cloudflare dashboard as their source of information, they contact me to point out issues and tell me they are opening a ticket.”

Cloudflare has had a similar effect as VFS Global employees outside of Jha’s immediate seven-person team gravitate towards the console and consult the system unprompted.

“We see productivity gains from staff taking the initiative to monitor Cloudflare on their own and responding to what they find before we can even raise a ticket. I no longer hear, ‘I’ll investigate and get back to you.’ Now they tell me, ‘This is what is happening, I’m fixing it,’” Jha relates. “It’s a beautiful product with a great onboarding experience.”

Continuous improvement with Cloudflare enhanced customer and technical support

Following a successful onboarding, with controls established and baselines in place, the Cloudflare dedicated account and enhanced technical support teams continue to work with VFS Global to identify gaps and ensure the company achieves optimum performance.

“At our first account review, when I believed we had done everything we could do, the Cloudflare team came to us with detailed insights on where we could improve,” says Jha. “They have also been super helpful in several no-notice scenarios where we onboarded something and had problems or did not see the expected benefits.”

Due to Cloudflare’s rapid support response, VFS Global has never had to roll back a change.