Policy-based content filtering

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium tangibly embodying a set of instructions, which when executed by one or more processors of a firewall system, cause the one or more processors to perform a method comprising:

• maintaining, by a firewall device, a plurality of configuration schemes, wherein each of the plurality of configuration schemes defines a set of administrator-configurable content filtering process settings;
• maintaining, by the firewall device, a security policy database including information defining a plurality of firewall security policies, wherein the information defining the plurality of firewall security policies includes, for at least one of the plurality of firewall security policies, an associated one of the plurality of configuration schemes and an action to take with respect to a particular network session based on one or more of a set of one or more source Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, a set of one or more destination IP addresses and a network service protocol;
• and
• performing, by the firewall device, policy-based content filtering of a plurality of network sessions by, for each network session of the plurality of network sessions:
• identifying a firewall security policy from among the plurality of firewall security policies that matches traffic associated with the network session;
• identifying a plurality of content filtering processes to be performed on the traffic based on the configuration scheme associated with the matching firewall security policy;
• and
• applying the identified plurality of content filtering processes to the traffic.