Patent ID: 7454418

Claim:
A method for signature scanning for one or more fully specified signatures, comprising: processing one or more signatures into one or more formats that include a plurality of fingerprints and one or more follow-on search data structures for each signature, each successive fingerprint of a particular signature having a first basic unit in a scanning direction that is shifted one or more units from the previous fingerprint of the particular signature such that the number of shifted fingerprints is equal to a step size for a signature scanning operation and the particular signature is identifiable at any location within any string fields to be scanned, the step size used to identify a plurality of locations to scan in one or more string fields, where each fingerprint of the plurality of fingerprints includes one or more fragments of the particular signature, the one or more fragments having particular locations anywhere within the particular signature; receiving a particular string field comprising a string of data values; identifying any signatures included in the particular string field including scanning the particular string field for the plurality of fingerprints associated with the one or more signatures, where the scanning includes scanning for the plurality of fingerprints including two or more fingerprints in parallel for each step size, and searching the particular string field for the follow-on search data structures only at the locations where one or more fingerprints are found; and outputting any identified signatures in the particular string field.