Patent attributes
Methods and systems for flow processing and switching, security, and other network applications, including a facility that processes a data flow to address patterns relevant to a variety of conditions are directed at internal network security, virtualization, and web connection security are described. Such flow processing facilities may be used for inspecting network traffic packet payloads to detect security threats and intrusions across accessible layers of the network IP stack by applying content matching and behavioral anomaly detection techniques based on regular expression matching and self-organizing maps. Exposing threats and intrusions within packet payload at or near real-time rates enhances network security from both external and internal sources while ensuring security policy is rigorously applied to data and system resources.