Introducing Runtime Application Protection for WAF Environments

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) are an essential security layer for most enterprises. They excel at blocking volumetric attacks, bots, credential abuse, API misuse, and known exploit signatures by inspecting network traffic at the perimeter.

But modern application risk doesn’t stop at the edge. Full application protection requires extending visibility and control inside the runtime where today’s most impactful exploits actually unfold. While WAFs excel at inspecting traffic, they can’t see what actually executes once requests enter the application.

Today, Kodem announces runtime application security for WAF environments, the next architectural evolution of Kodem’s Application Detection & Response (ADR) platform. Integrating directly with existing WAF deployments, extending Kodem’s ADR capabilities into perimeter environments without requiring architectural replacement. Complimenting existing WAF deployments by:

• Validating what executes inside production workloads.
• Confirming which vulnerabilities are reachable from the edge.
• Detecting exploit chains that traditional signatures alone cannot identify.

By combining perimeter defense with Kodem’s application reality: runtime observability and response, organizations achieve full-spectrum application protection, moving beyond traffic inspection to secure applications with grounded execution evidence.

From Protecting Traffic to Protecting Execution

Modern risk increasingly lives inside the workload:

• Complex dataflows that traverse multiple functions and libraries.
• Deserialization exploit chains lacking identifiable signatures.
• Supply chain execution paths originating from trusted dependencies.
• AI-generated code and latent endpoints.
• Evolving WAF bypass techniques.

These attack paths don’t always arrive as recognizable malicious requests. They often emerge through legitimate execution flows once traffic has already passed the front door. Traditional WAFs were never architected to answer questions like:

• Does this vulnerability actually execute in production?
• Is this library actively loaded in memory right now?
• Which execution paths from the edge can trigger exploit code?
• Under what conditions would compromise actually occur?

By observing execution at runtime, Kodem confirms which vulnerabilities are truly exploitable and enriches runtime indications that improve enforcement accuracy and prioritization. This shifts security from signature-based blocking to evidence-driven protection across the application stack.

Introducing the 1 + 1 = 3 Architecture

Kodem and WAFs combined form a complementary security architecture. WAFs deliver perimeter defense by stopping volumetric attacks, mitigating DDoS, blocking bots and filtering known exploit signatures.

Kodem strengthens WAF environments in two complementary ways:

• Proactive: Discover & Signal
  Kodem presents zero-day behavior, deserialization exploits and supply-chain execution at runtime, providing contextual signals that allow security teams to block traffic or terminate sessions.
  
• Reactive: Detect & Respond
  Kodem identifies zero-days, deserialization exploits, and supply-chain attacks at execution, then signals perimeter controls to block attackers in real time.

Inside the workload, Kodem validates which dependencies are reachable, secures AI-generated code and latent models and identifies triggering conditions for complex exploits such as deserialization and dataflow abuse.

The outcome is more than the sum of its parts. Perimeter visibility integrated with runtime observation creates a compounding security effect:

• Traffic intelligence meets execution intelligence.
• Prevention at the edge meets protection inside production.
• Static rules meet live runtime evidence.

Enterprise Use Cases

Layered alongside existing WAF deployments, Kodem enables critical capabilities for modern application security.‍

Zero-day and supply chain risk mitigation: Kodem detects threats that bypass perimeter controls, confirms which vulnerable libraries are actively loaded in memory and validates whether supply chain vulnerabilities are reachable in production.‍

AI code assurance and shadow discovery: Kodem governs AI-generated code inside development workflows, discovers shadow models and dormant endpoints at runtime, identifies embedded AI agent frameworks and validates execution paths before they become exploitable.

Runtime security intelligence: These indications enhance detections presented in Kodem’s Incidents dashboard, giving security teams immediate visibility into exploit attempts, execution paths and AI model behavior in production. Early adopters routinely eliminate over 90% of scanning noise while enabling adaptive, evidence-driven enforcement.‍

Zero Trust inside the workload: Kodem extends Zero Trust beyond the network boundary with memory-level workload integrity verification, continuous runtime observation, execution-layer identity anomaly detection and process-level behavior validation.

Together, these capabilities reduce exposure to signature-evasive attacks, strengthen compliance posture and provide workload-level integrity assurance.

Why This Matters Now

Three converging trends are escalating risk faster than perimeter controls can keep pace:

• AI workloads are expanding rapidly in production environments.
• Deserialization and supply chain attacks are increasing in sophistication and frequency.
• Signature bypass techniques continue to evolve.

At the same time, enterprises are investing heavily in Zero Trust maturity, yet most Zero Trust architectures still stop at the network. Modern applications demand runtime visibility.

This release positions Kodem not just as another security tool, but as:

• A multiplier of perimeter investments.
• A Zero Trust maturity accelerator.
• An AI workload protection enabler.
• A runtime intelligence layer for modern application architectures.

Positioning Beyond Traditional Application Security

Traditional security tooling typically operates in isolation, WAFs at the perimeter, runtime detection inside applications and response workflows handled separately.

Kodem’s approach is different: Rather than treating runtime intelligence and perimeter enforcement as independent systems, Kodem integrates ADR-class execution visibility directly into existing WAF environments. Runtime indications inform enforcement decisions, exploit paths are validated before action is taken and mitigation is grounded in what actually runs in production.

This creates a true defense-in-depth architecture that aligns edge protection with application execution, reducing blind spots attackers increasingly exploit and enabling more precise, evidence-driven response.

From Edge Defense to Application Assurance

Security teams don’t need another replacement platform. They need their existing controls to work harder and smarter.

By validating execution inside production, Kodem transforms perimeter security into true application protection, grounding remediation in runtime evidence, improving enforcement precision and closing the gap between what gets scanned and what actually runs. Security teams gain faster prioritization, clearer remediation paths and more precise enforcement, without replacing their existing perimeter infrastructure.