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Public-facing applications are constantly probed. A reverse proxy with a Web Application Firewall (WAF) sits in front of your app at the edge, inspecting and filtering every request before it ever reaches your origin.
What a reverse proxy does
It terminates the client connection at the edge, inspects the request, and forwards only legitimate traffic to your origin — which stays hidden behind the proxy's IPs. Your origin IP is never exposed to the internet.
The protection layers
| Layer | Stops | How |
|---|---|---|
| DDoS mitigation | Volumetric and protocol floods | Anycast absorption + rate limiting |
| WAF | OWASP Top 10 — SQL injection, XSS, path traversal | Signature + behavioral rules, managed rulesets |
| Bot management | Credential stuffing, scraping, malicious automation | Fingerprinting, JS challenges, reputation |
| Rate limiting | API abuse and brute-force attempts | Per-IP, per-path, per-token thresholds |
| AI app protection | Prompt injection, model abuse, and data-leak attempts | LLM-aware inspection layer |
Why edge inspection matters
- Threats are stopped before consuming your compute.
- Your origin IP is concealed, shrinking the attack surface.
- Rules update centrally — new CVEs are mitigated network-wide.
- TLS is terminated and inspected at the edge.
Modern addition: as businesses ship AI-powered features, an AI protection layer extends the WAF to detect prompt abuse and sensitive-data exposure unique to LLM-backed apps. See our DDoS protection guide for the volumetric layer, and our Zero Trust Edge guide for the full SASE picture.
Contact our engineers to discuss WAF architecture or edge security for your applications.