| CPC H04L 63/20 (2013.01) [H04L 63/0236 (2013.01); H04L 63/104 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |

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1. A method comprising:
maintaining, by a network device, information regarding a plurality of security policies within a dual bitmap based search tree in which a first bitmap and a second bitmap are formatted as information embedded in a node structure in the dual bitmap based search tree;
receiving, by the network device, a packet;
comparing, by the network device, at least a portion of a first field of the packet with a first range, where the first range corresponds to a first bit location in the first bitmap, and wherein the first bit location in the first bitmap is associated with at least a first security policy of the plurality of security policies;
after determining the at least a portion of the first field is within the first range, accessing, by the network device, a second bit location in the second bitmap, wherein the second bit location in the second bitmap corresponds to the first bit location in the first bitmap; and
based at least in part upon a value in the second bit location in the second bitmap, applying, by the network device, a set of one or more security policies of the plurality of security policies to the packet.
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