1. A method for protecting a computer from malicious network traffic during a boot operation of an operating system of the computer, the method comprising: (i) by a kernel network driver of the operating system, loading a compiled security profile comprising packet inspection rules, from a storage location comprising persistent storage medium into a memory of the computer during an early stage of the boot operation of the operating system of the computer when kernel mode services are available and before user mode services are initialized; and (ii) based on the loaded compiled security profile, inspecting packets, transmitted to or from the computer by a computer network according to the packet inspection rules, while the operating system is being booted during the early stage of the boot operation of the operating system and after loading the compiled security profile, and filtering the packets for protecting the computer from the malicious network traffic; wherein the inspecting and filtering of the packets is performed in communication with a kernel network stack and the kernel network driver.