Processing network traffic

A system for processing network traffic, the system including:

• at least one processing engine configured to receive network data being transferred over a network and to generate metadata relating to the network data;
• at least one rule engine configured to receive and process the metadata to generate an output;
• and
• at least one selection engine configured to receive and process the rule engine output to determine whether the network data is to be processed by a further component and/or whether the network data is to continue to be transferred over the network,
• wherein the at least one selection engine, the at least one rule engine and the at least one selection engine are implemented in system hardware or firmware, and the further component is implemented as software stored in a tangible medium for execution on another processor.