Mechanisms are provided for handling client computing device requests with adaptive rule loading and session control. The mechanisms partition a set of rules, into a plurality of filter sets with each filter set having a different subset of the set of rules and being directed to identifying a different type of attack on a backend application or service. A subset of filter sets is selected to be used to validate client computing device requests received from client computing devices. The selected filter sets are applied to requests and/or responses to requests. The mechanisms dynamically modify which filter sets are included in the subset of filter sets based on an adaptive reinforcement learning operation on results of applying the selected filter sets to the requests and/or responses to requests.