2. The method of claim 1 , wherein building said plurality of HTTP message models further comprises developing said plurality of security rules.
1. A method for operating a web application server firewall, said method comprising the steps of: building a plurality of HTTP message models for anticipated messages including HTTP request messages and HTTP response messages, said plurality of HTTP message models including at least a first HTTP message model and a second HTTP message model corresponding to an HTTP request message and an HTTP response message, respectively, and each of said plurality of HTTP message models comprising a plurality of message model sections; intercepting at least one of said HTTP request message and said HTTP response message; identifying a corresponding HTTP message model from among said plurality of HTTP message models, based on said intercepting step, said HTTP message model comprising a plurality of message model sections; parsing a representation of said at least one of said HTTP request message and said HTTP response message into message sections in accordance with said message model sections of said HTTP message model; binding a plurality of security rules to said message model sections, said plurality of security rules each specifying at least one action to be taken in response to a given condition, said given condition being based, at least in part, on a corresponding given one of said message sections; and processing said at least one of said HTTP request message and said HTTP response message in accordance with said plurality of security rules.