What is Web application firewall?
Also called: WAF
The short answer
A web application firewall filters incoming requests to a website and blocks known attack patterns before they reach the application.
Web application firewall, explained
It is a safety net, not a substitute for secure code.
Questions people ask about Web application firewall
What is Web application firewall?
A web application firewall filters incoming requests to a website and blocks known attack patterns before they reach the application.
Related terms
A DDoS attack floods a website with traffic from many machines at once to overwhelm it and knock it offline.
Rate limitingRate limiting caps how many requests one visitor or IP can make in a period, protecting logins, forms and APIs from abuse and brute-force attacks.
Website securityWebsite security is protecting a site, its data and its visitors from attacks, through HTTPS, updated software, careful input handling, strong logins and backups.
Cross-site scriptingCross-site scripting is an attack where malicious code is injected into a page and runs in other visitors' browsers, stealing sessions or data.
Part of the Web Encyclopedia by Apex Flow Digital. Definitions are general knowledge, kept current, with no invented statistics.