Patent ID: 8566920

Claim:
An electronic device for handling packets being exchanged between an untrusted network and a protected network, the electronic device comprising: a plurality of gateway devices for processing packets associated with respective ones of a plurality of different communication protocols, each gateway device operating based upon a user mode; and a packet processor device operating based upon a kernel mode and for intercepting a packet from the untrusted network and intended for delivery to the protected network, the packet comprising original values for source and destination information fields, the original value for the source information field comprising a source address, the original value for the destination information field comprising a destination address, replacing the original values for the source and destination information fields with replacement values, different from the original values, for the source and destination information fields, determining whether the packet is associated with at least one of the plurality of different communication protocols and if so, routing the packet to the respective gateway device based upon packet source information and an associated communication protocol of the packet so that the respective gateway device authenticates the routed packet based upon the at least one communication protocol, and otherwise processing the packet for delivery to the protected network, receiving from said plurality of gateway devices authenticated packets and processing the authenticated packets for delivery to the protected network, and restoring processed packets from said plurality of gateway devices to include the original values for the source and destination information fields.