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Web Application Firewall Decision Lab

Switch between clean traffic, exploit probes, and tuning exceptions to see how parsing, scoring, and enforcement shape what reaches the origin.

scenario
Benign checkout JSON
traffic class
normal purchase flow

Route: POST /api/checkout

raw request
Bytes on the wire
POST /api/checkout HTTP/1.1
Host: shop.example.eu
Content-Type: application/json
Cookie: session=4f91b2

{"cartId":"cart_7841","paymentMethod":"card","coupon":"SUMMER10"}
canonical request
What the WAF reasons about
method=POST
path=/api/checkout
content_type=application/json
json.cartId=cart_7841
json.paymentMethod=card
json.coupon=SUMMER10
rule hits
Detection signals

No protocol anomalies. No injection signatures. Body fields match the expected purchase shape.

policy score
Combined severity

protocol 0 + exploit syntax 0 + reputation 0 = 0

enforcement
Boundary decision
allow

Allow immediately.

origin effect
What the application sees

The origin receives the checkout request and continues with stock checks and payment authorisation.

operator feedback
Tuning note

Keep this kind of high-volume normal request in dashboards so new rules are measured against a real baseline instead of intuition.

Step 1 / 6The WAF receives bytes before the origin does

Start with the raw request. At this point the WAF has network and HTTP bytes, not a verdict. The first job is to capture the same request the application would otherwise process.

A healthy WAF should be boring on ordinary traffic. Good protection still means fast, quiet allows for clean requests.

Active route: POST /api/checkout

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