Filtering Network Traffic Using Protected Filtering Mechanisms

A method comprising:

• receiving, at a first device comprising a processor, an obfuscated signature from a second device, wherein the obfuscated signature represents a signature that is available to the second device and inaccessible to the first device, and wherein the obfuscated signature is received without contents of the signature;
• receiving, at the first device and from a third device, traffic that is to be filtered and a hash value;
• and
• generating, by the first device and based on the hash value and the obfuscated signature, a filtering decision for the traffic, wherein the first device generates the filtering decision without having contents of the signature.

A system comprising:

• a first device comprising a processor;
• and
• a memory that stores computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising
• receiving a hash key and a signature representation, wherein the signature representation represents a signature that is available to a second device and inaccessible to the first device, and wherein the hash key and the signature representation are received without contents of the signature that is represented by the signature representation,
• receiving traffic that is to be filtered,
• generating, using the hash key, a hash value from the traffic, and
• providing the traffic and the hash value to a third device, wherein the third device is configured to generate a filtering decision using the hash value and an obfuscated signature provided by the second device without having contents of the signature.