What is the main purpose of a web application firewall (WAF)?

The primary function of a web application firewall (WAF) is to protect web applications from various online threats by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic. This security measure is crucial in defending against common attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other vulnerabilities that could compromise the integrity and availability of web applications.

WAFs operate by establishing rules that identify and block malicious traffic while allowing legitimate requests to pass through. They can also analyze incoming and outgoing requests, providing an additional layer of insight into the traffic that a web application processes. By effectively mitigating risk, WAFs play a critical role in maintaining the security of web-based services and applications, making them indispensable in today's increasingly threat-laden cybersecurity landscape.

The other options, while they may encompass aspects of web or network security, do not align with the specific role of a WAF. For instance, improving transmission speed is more related to network performance optimizations rather than security. Analyzing user behavior is typically a function of analytics tools rather than a firewall, which is focused on traffic regulation and filtering. Internal network security management involves different mechanisms like firewalls or intrusion detection systems that are more concerned with protecting the internal network infrastructure than specifically safeguarding web applications.