A multi-gigabit virus detection algorithm using ternary CAM

During the last few years, the number of Internet worms and viruses has significantly increased. For the fast detection of Internet worms/viruses, the signature-based scheme with TCAM is necessary for the network intrusion detection system (NIDS). However, due to the limit of the TCAM size, all the signatures of Internet worms/viruses cannot be stored. Hence, we propose a two-phase content inspection algorithm which can support a large number of long signatures at TCAM. From the simulation results, it is shown that our algorithm for TCAM provides a fast virus-detection capability at line rate of 10Gbps (OC192).