Who is Imperva?
Imperva is a cybersecurity company that provides security and observability products for applications, APIs, and data across on-premises (on-prem) and cloud environments.
- Web Application and API Protection (WAAP), including bot management and runtime protection (application security)
- Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation for websites, networks, and Domain Name System (DNS) (DDoS protection)
- Cloud and on-prem data security for structured and unstructured data (data security)
- Account takeover protection, fraud detection, and threat intelligence services (fraud and risk management)
- Security analytics, monitoring, and reporting across applications, APIs, and databases (security analytics)
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More About Imperva
Imperva focuses on securing the application and data layers for enterprises that operate websites, APIs, and business-critical databases across public cloud, private cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments. Its portfolio centers on protecting how users access applications and how applications access data, with products that System Integration Testing (SIT) in-line for traffic inspection and out-of-band for data discovery, monitoring, and policy enforcement.
In the application security category (application security), Imperva provides web application firewalls, Application Programming Interface (API) protection, bot management, and runtime protection capabilities that inspect HTTP/S traffic and enforce security policies at the edge or close to application workloads. These services typically integrate with content delivery networks, reverse proxies, and load balancers, and support deployment models such as cloud-delivered Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), virtual appliances, and container-based gateways. The offerings use techniques such as signature-based detection, behavioral analysis, and positive security models to block common web exploits and automated abuse.
Imperva’s DDoS protection services (DDoS protection) are designed to absorb or filter volumetric and application-layer attacks targeting websites, network infrastructure, and DNS endpoints. Enterprises direct traffic through Imperva’s global scrubbing infrastructure or use always-on protection, where traffic is continuously routed through Imperva’s network. The platform relies on Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing changes, anycast networking, and traffic profiling to distinguish attack traffic from legitimate user requests.
In data security (data security), Imperva offers tools for discovery and classification of sensitive data, activity monitoring, and policy enforcement across databases, data warehouses, file stores, and cloud data platforms. These products typically integrate via database proxies, agents, native database logging, and API-based connectors in cloud environments. Capabilities include user activity auditing, access control policies, alerting on anomalous queries, and support for compliance reporting for regulations such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
Imperva also addresses account takeover and online fraud (fraud and risk management) through risk-based analysis of user behavior, device attributes, and session context. These tools focus on credential stuffing detection, account compromise signals, and fraudulent transaction patterns, often used by financial services, e-commerce, and consumer applications. Threat intelligence services provide updated information on malicious Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), bots, and attack campaigns that feed into Imperva’s protection policies.
Across its portfolio, Imperva offers centralized management and analytics (security analytics), providing dashboards and reporting that aggregate logs from application security gateways, DDoS edge infrastructure, and data activity monitoring components. Integrations with SIEMs, Security Orchestration Automation Response (SOAR) platforms, and ITSM tools allow security and infrastructure teams to automate incident response and correlate Imperva telemetry with other security data. In an enterprise technology directory, Imperva aligns with categories such as WAAP, DDoS mitigation, data security platforms, fraud and risk analytics, and security analytics and monitoring.
Our description of Imperva. Updated December 2025.
