Patent ID: 8321440

Claim:
A network electronic device for searching for predetermined strings, the device comprising: a first processor including a classification engine to be coupled to receive a network packet via a network and to perform a first stage search on data contained in the network packet, wherein the classification engine generates a first stage search report that indicates multiple potential strings of interest if the data contained within the network packet has a first block matching a corresponding first block of at least one of the predetermined strings, wherein the first stage search report includes a field to indicate how many potential strings of interest were identified in the data during the first stage search, and wherein the first stage search report further includes entries for each potential string of interest for identifying each block of data that matches a corresponding block of data of the at least one of the predetermined strings; and a policy processor coupled to perform a second stage search on the data contained in the network packet in response to the first stage search report, wherein the second stage search compares a second block of the potential string of interest to a corresponding second block of the at least one predetermined string to determine whether a match exists.