It’s no secret that web applications have undergone a significant transformation over the past few years. The widespread adoption of containerization, serverless computing, low-code development, APIs, and microservices has redefined how applications are built, deployed, and scaled. According to Statista, over 60% of organizations now use Kubernetes to manage their containerized workloads.
Meanwhile, security remains a pressing concern, with web applications involved in 43% of breaches, according to the 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. These shifts highlight the rapid evolution of web development and the need for security solutions to keep pace with the increasing demand for scalable, secure, high-performance applications.
Imperva is leading the way in helping organizations navigate this transformation, ensuring that security keeps pace with application development, deployment, and scaling regardless of where they reside. Today, we’re excited to share Imperva’s vision for the future of application security, revolutionizing how organizations safeguard their digital assets.
Empowering Digital Transformation
Imperva enables organizations to protect their applications anywhere, at scale, and with the highest ROI. Our vision is clear: to empower organizations to deliver transformative digital user experiences without compromising security. This is our north star, and it’s built upon these guiding principles:
- Security efficacy: Stop the most threats with the fewest false positives.
- Operational efficiency: Deploy at scale with the fastest time to value.
- Security anywhere: Protect applications and APIs anywhere they run.
This means ensuring organizations can seamlessly deploy applications anywhere with security that adapts to their environment, providing comprehensive protection against existing and emerging threats, including AI-driven risks, without friction. Now let’s discuss how we’re executing on this vision.
Introducing the Imperva Security Engine: Powering the Future of Application Security
At the core of this new generation of application security is the Imperva Security Engine. Built upon Imperva’s industry-leading Cloud WAF and API Security, the Imperva Security Engine was designed from the ground up as a tightly integrated, highly efficient framework. This innovative architecture allows for deployment in any application environment, giving organizations the necessary flexibility and adaptability by ensuring security is:
- Effective in any environment: The engine provides robust protection from cloud-native applications to legacy systems.
- Optimized for high ROI: Customers can secure applications with minimal overhead and maximum efficiency.
- Built for evolving threats: As threats evolve, particularly in the era of AI, the Security Engine adapts, offering future-proof security.
The Security Engine is at the core of Imperva’s suite of next-gen solutions, enabling us to protect a diverse array of applications, whether unmediated or reliant on third-party gateways.
In the upcoming months, Advanced Bot Protection and Client-Side Protection will also be integrated into the Imperva Security Engine, bringing more of the Imperva Application Security ecosystem to this next-gen framework.
Introducing Imperva Elastic WAF: The world’s leading WAF, built for cloud-native environments
The next generation of the Imperva Web Application Firewall, named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Web Application Firewall Solutions, Q1 2025, is here.
As modern applications evolve, security must keep pace with innovation. Imperva Elastic WAF is the first solution powered by Imperva’s next-generation Security Engine, providing enterprise-grade protection for cloud-native environments without added latency or operational complexity.
Hybrid Security, SaaS Simplicity
Elastic WAF is architecture-agnostic. It offers a hybrid approach that delivers SaaS simplicity with on-premises control, all powered by Kubernetes. Whether protecting APIs, microservices, or containerized workloads, Elastic WAF scales effortlessly across multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments.
Built for DevSecOps: Bridging Security and Agility
With the growing adoption of DevSecOps, security can no longer be an afterthought. Elastic WAF seamlessly integrates into CI/CD pipelines, empowering SecOps with robust protection and visibility while ensuring DevOps retains agility. This collaborative approach eliminates bottlenecks, simplifies security operations, and reduces the total cost of ownership while enabling frictionless development.
Enterprise-Grade Protection Without Compromise
Designed for agility, flexibility, and ease of deployment, Elastic WAF delivers:
- Best-in-class threat protection for evolving application threats
- Seamless visibility and automated security operations
- Zero added latency to maintain performance
- Developer-friendly integration into existing workflows
Imperva Elastic WAF will enter general availability in 2025. Expect to learn more about it in the coming months.
A Pioneer in Application Security: From On-Premises to Cloud and Beyond
Now that we’ve covered the exciting future ahead, let’s briefly review how Imperva has led the way in application security for over two decades. The first generation emerged when organizations were heavily invested in on-premises applications. The growing frequency and sophistication of web attacks necessitated that these organizations adopt rigorous security measures. Imperva led this charge by introducing the WAF Gateway – a pioneering solution that laid the foundation for web application protection.
As organizations began to embrace digital transformation, the paradigm shifted. Businesses started migrating their applications to the cloud for increased scalability and faster time to market. However, attempting to lift and shift existing security measures to the cloud often fell short. This prompted a rethinking of application security and led to the rise of the second generation of WAF solutions. Imperva addressed this transformation with Incapsula, now known as our Cloud WAF, enabling organizations to manage and deploy application security securely in a cloud-centric landscape.
Today, we’re at the brink of a third generation characterized by advanced AI applications and the advent of cloud-native architectures. Security must now be flexible and dynamic, seamlessly moving alongside applications regardless of their deployment environment. And once again, Imperva is poised to guide organizations through this significant change in application security.
To Wrap Things Up
The application security landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, moving from traditional on-premises defenses to a future where flexibility and adaptability are the top requirements. With the Imperva Security Engine, we are not just responding to new challenges; we are defining a new era of security that integrates seamlessly with the latest technological advancements. Stay tuned for more updates later this year as we dive deeper into our plans for the future of application security.
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