IP communication device as firewall between network and computer system

A method, comprising:

• receiving a data packet at a first port of an Internet protocol (IP) communication device;
• filtering the data packet with a firewall included in the IP communication device, said filtering including:
• extracting a data field from the data packet;
• determining that the data packet has an issue unrelated to a predetermined pattern, said determining including:
• receiving information from a frame validation database indicating a plurality of framing issues, and
• determining that the data packet has a framing issue when determining whether the data packet has any of the plurality of framing issues;
• and
• selecting an action to perform on the data packet based on the determined issue, said selecting including:
• selecting the action from a plurality of actions indicated in an action database that are associated with the plurality of framing issues;
• and
• transmitting the filtered data packet from a second port of the IP communication device.

An Internet protocol (IP) communication device, comprising:

• an IP phone that includes:
• a first port configured to be coupled to a computer system;
• a second port configured to be coupled to a network;
• an Ethernet switch forward engine coupled between the first port and the second port;
• and
• a firewall module coupled to the Ethernet switch forward engine, the firewall module including:
• a frame validation engine configured to determine whether the data packet has an issue unrelated to a predetermined pattern, and
• an action engine coupled to an action database that associates framing issues with corresponding actions, the action engine configured to select one or more actions from the action database to perform on the data packet when the frame validation engine determines that the data packet has the determined issue.

An Internet protocol (IP) communication device, comprising:

• a first port;
• a second port;
• an Ethernet switch forward engine coupled between the first port and the second port;
• and
• a firewall module coupled to the Ethernet switch forward engine, the firewall module including:
• a parser engine configured to extract a data field from a data packet received at the first port;
• a frame validation engine configured to determine whether the data packet has an issue unrelated to a predetermined pattern;
• and
• an action engine configured to select an action to perform on the data packet if the frame validation engine determines that the data packet has the determined issue;
• wherein the parser engine is coupled to a parser database that indicates a set of data fields including the data field, the parser engine being configured to extract one or more of the data fields of the set indicated in the parser database from the data packet;
• wherein the frame validation engine is coupled to a frame validation database that indicates a plurality of framing issues, the frame validation engine being configured to determine whether the data packet has one or more of the plurality of framing issues;
• and
• wherein the action engine is coupled to an action database that associates each framing issue of the plurality of framing issues with a corresponding action, the action engine being configured to select one or more actions from the action database to perform on the data packet based on one or more framing issues determined by the pattern match engine for the data packet.

A method in an Internet protocol (IP) communication device, comprising:

• receiving a data packet at a first port of the IP communication device that is an IP phone;
• and
• filtering the data packet with a firewall included in the IP communication device, said filtering including:
• extracting a data field from the data packet,
• determining that the extracted data field has a framing issue,
• selecting an action to perform on the data packet based on the determined framing issue, the action selected from a plurality of actions indicated in an action database that are associated with a plurality of framing issues, and
• performing the selected action with respect to a second port of the IP communication device.