Patent ID: 7761708

Claim:
A network device comprising: a microprocessor and a plurality of filter based policies to be applied to packets of data and including at least one firewall policy and at least one security policy, the network device further comprising: a set of layer processes executed by the microprocessor of the network device, the set of layer processes comprising: a first layer process that performs: identifying at least one parameter associated with a packet received from a second layer process from the set of layer processes, sending a request to a policy engine to identify at least one matching filter from a set of filters, the request comprising the at least one parameter associated with the packet and parameters associated with the first layer process, and receiving a response to the request, the response including an action identifying a firewall policy from the at least one firewall policy to be applied to the packet and a policy context identifying a security policy from the at least one security policy to be applied to the packet; the policy engine in communication with the set of layer processes, wherein the policy engine processes the request from the first layer process by identifying the at least one matching filter, and wherein conditions of the at least one matching filter match the parameters associated with the first layer process and the at least one parameter associated with the packet; and the set of filters stored in the policy engine, each filter in the set of filters having filter conditions, an action identifying the at least one firewall policy, and a policy context identifying the at least one security policy.