Patent ID: 7891001

Claim:
A method for applying security processing to data communications traffic, the method including operations comprising: receiving a sequence of data packets; classifying each of the data packets by data packet type; segregating the sequence of data packets into multiple respective packet flows based on data packet types; for a respective packet flow of the multiple respective packet flows, applying security processing that is appropriate to the respective packet flow based on a data packet type of data packets in the respective packet flow; and forwarding the data packets of the respective packet flow to a destination in response to detecting that security processing specific to the data packet type of the respective packet flow passes security testing; the method further comprising: retrieving a given data packet from the sequence; utilizing an address in the given data packet to identify a customer to which the given data packet pertains; obtaining a security profile for the customer, the security profile indicating security processing to be applied to communications associated with the customer; identifying an original port number in the given data packet, the original port number indicating a next hop node in which to forward the given data packet; replacing the original port number in the given data packet with a replacement port number, the replacement port number specifying a particular processing node of multiple processing nodes in which to forward the given data packet, the particular processing node designated to provide security processing for data packets of a same type as the given data packet; and forwarding, based on the replacement port number, the given data packet to the particular processing node.