ModSecurity™ is a web application firewall engine that provides very little protection on its own. In order to become useful, ModSecurity™ must be configured with rules. In order to enable users to take full advantage of ModSecurity™ out of the box, Trustwave's SpiderLabs is providing a free certified rule set for ModSecurity™ 2.x. Unlike intrusion detection and prevention systems, which rely on signatures specific to known vulnerabilities, the Core Rules provide generic protection from unknown vulnerabilities often found in web applications, which are in most cases custom coded. The Core Rules are heavily commented to allow it to be used as a step-by-step deployment guide for ModSecurity™.