ABSTRACT Spartan Web Application Firewall

Computer security is an ongoing issue and attacks are growing more sophisit-cated. One category of attack utilizes cross-site scripting (XSS) to extract confiden-tial data such as a user’s login credential’s without the knowledge of either the user nor the web server by utilizing vulnerabilities on web pages and internet browsers. Many people develop their own web applications without learning about or having good coding practices or security in mind. Web application firewalls are able to help but can be enhanced to be more effective than they currently are at detecting re-flected XSS attacks by analyzing the request and response data sent between the web application by a user’s browser to more quickly determine if a reflected XSS attack is being attempted. Spartan Web Application Firewall is designed to do this efficiently without being limited to requiring users to be using a specific web browser or web browser plug-in. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Thomas Austin for providing guidance and expertise throughout this project, Dr. Stamp for getting me interested in computer securit