Patent ID: 8185510

Claim:
A network security system, comprising: a plurality of processing nodes external to network edges of a plurality of external systems, each processing node comprising: a processing node data store device storing security policy data defining security policies for each of the external systems; a plurality of data inspection engines, each data inspection engine configured to perform a threat detection process to classify content items according to a threat classification for a corresponding threat; and a processing node manager in data communication with the data inspection engines and configured to access the security policy data stored in the processing node data store and manage the classified content item in accordance with the security policy data so that security policies for a plurality of external systems in data communication with the processing node are implemented external to the network edges for each of the external systems; and an authority node separate from and in data communication with the plurality of processing nodes, the authority node comprising a authority node data store storing security policy data for each of the plurality of external systems, and comprising an authority node manager configured to provide the security policy data to each of the processing nodes, wherein the security policy data in the authority node data store comprises master data comprising policy data, threat data, and data inspection engines and dictionaries for use by the plurality of processing nodes, and wherein the authority node updates the master data based on communication from the plurality of processing nodes and updates each of the plurality of processing nodes based on the master data.