US Patent 11683294 Privacy-preserving learning of web traffic

A method by one or more network devices communicatively coupled to a web application layer proxy for profiling parameters of web application layer requests received by the web application layer proxy while preserving privacy. The method includes obtaining masked parameter values associated with a parameter in the web application layer requests, where the masked parameter values associated with the parameter are generated by the web application layer proxy based on masking parameter values associated with the parameter while preserving lengths of the parameter values associated with the parameter and character types of characters in the parameter values associated with the parameter, generating the profile of the parameter based on analyzing the masked parameter values associated with the parameter, and providing the profile of the parameter to the web application layer proxy.