Patent ID: 7461401

Claim:
A method of handling in a firewall data communication protocols comprising at least one parent connection and at least one related connection, wherein at least one attribute of the at least one related connection is negotiated within the at least one parent connection, said method comprising allowing a parent connection, storing information about the parent connection, monitoring contents of the parent connection, detecting within the parent connection negotiation of at least one attribute of a related connection, and after said detecting i) comparing said at least one negotiated attribute of the related connection and at least one piece of said information about the parent connection to a set of rules for finding a matching rule, and deciding on the basis of said matching rule, whether the related connection is allowable, ii) allowing the related connection to pass through a firewall if the related connection is allowable, and iii) preventing the related connection from passing through the firewall if the related connection is not allowable, and wherein said information about the parent connection comprises at least one of the following: a source address, a destination address, a source port, a destination port, a user identifier, authentication information, a stream type identifier, a program identifier, and information identifying a separate processing module used for handling the parent connection, and wherein a rule of said set of rules comprises at least one attribute of a related connection, information about a parent connection and an action to be taken for a related connection.