Rate Limiting Security

ELI5 — The Vibe Check

Rate Limiting prevents abuse by capping how many requests someone can make. 100 login attempts per minute? Blocked. 1000 API calls per second? Throttled. It stops brute force attacks, credential stuffing, and API abuse. It's the 'slow down, buddy' of web security.

Real Talk

Security-focused rate limiting restricts request frequency per client/IP/user to mitigate brute force, credential stuffing, enumeration, and DoS attacks. Implemented at API gateway, reverse proxy, or application level with sliding windows, token buckets, or leaky buckets.

When You'll Hear This

"Rate limiting on the login endpoint blocks brute force attacks after 5 failed attempts." / "Our API returns 429 Too Many Requests with a Retry-After header when limits are hit."