1. An apparatus comprising: a request filter module that intercepts a network request to prevent the network request from entering a data network, the network request sent by a client and intended for one or more recipients on the data network; a cache check module that checks a shared response cache for an entry matching the network request; a local response module that sends a local response to the client in response to an entry in the shared response cache matching the network request the local response to the client being non-maliciously spoofed such that the local response is formatted to appear to the client to be from a matching recipient of the one or more recipients on the data network, the matching recipient identified based on information from the matching entry in the shared response cache; a request bridge module that bridges the network request to the one or more recipients in response to the shared response cache failing to have an entry matching the network request; and maintains a list of bridged network requests at the virtual bridge such that a response received from the one or more recipients is observed in response to the received response corresponding to a bridged network request on the list, a response monitor module that observes a network response to the network request sent from one of the one or more recipients to the client; a cache update module that populates the shared response cache with an entry matching the network request based on information from the observed network response; a request bridge module that bridges a subsequent network request to the one or more recipients in response to the shared response cache failing to have the matching entry in response to expiring the matching entry from the shared response cache, the subsequent network request corresponding to the matching entry; and a cache update module that re-populates the shared response cache with a subsequent entry matching the subsequent network request based on an observed network response to the subsequent network request; wherein said modules comprise one or more of hardware circuits, a programmable hardware device and computer readable program code, wherein when said modules comprise computer readable code, the apparatus comprises a processor that executes the computer readable code.