What is a WAF

A WAF is a web application firewall. A Web Application Firewall protects HTTP applications (eg websites) using a set of rules to protect against various common attacks, such as SQL Injection and Cross site scripting (XSS).

Mod Security Web Application Firewall

Mod_Security is an apache (and IIS) module which provides an interface to apply rules to protect your HTTP applications. There are various providers of ModSecurity rules, both free and paid. Mod Security Web Application Firewall is open source.