Scalability of Hash-based Pattern Matching for High-speed Network Security and Monitoring

• https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9631447

hash functions, high-speed networks, scalability, pattern matching

Gradually increasing throughput of high-speed networks puts continuous pressure
on the performance of operations over a stream of network data. Probably the most
affected operation in the area of network security and monitoring is pattern
matching, which is in the core of widely deployed intrusion detection systems
(IDSes) like Snort, Suricata and Bro. This paper therefore proposes several
optimizations of a hash-based pattern matching architecture that together allow
to increase its throughput to 100 Gbps and beyond. Proposed optimizations target
an interconnection network between parallel hash function engines and independent
memory blocks addressed by hashes computed over short strings of input data.
Specifically, the optimizations reduce resource utilization by sharing parts of
the full interconnection network among its several outputs and lower collision
rate in these shared parts by aggregation and distributed buffering of memory
access requests. The optimized pattern matching architecture is therefore able to
utilize a  higher number of parallel hash functions, each of which can use the
interconnection network to access any memory block. This allows not only to
increase the throughput of a key component within IDSes to more than 100 Gbps,
but also to support a larger set of network threat patterns and to update this
set dynamically.