The need for network security is pervasive in organizations ranging from large corporate, governmental, and educational institutions to small business and individuals. These pervasive and continuing attacks on large networks, and the considerable costs and damages such attacks can inflict, have provided incentive for researchers in government, industry, and academia to search for methods and apparatus to provide security for these networks. Broad issues for designing high speed security include detecting and responding to security breaches. 

Researchers at PNNL have developed a method for providing security to a network with data streams that each have differing levels of sensitivity. The technology examines a data stream on a network to determine the presence of one or more predetermined characteristics exhibiting a predetermined combination of the predetermined characteristics. This invention provides security for high speed networks. More specifically, this invention offers methods and apparatus for distributed intrusion protection allowing security for ultra-high bandwidth networks.