1. A network device comprising: at least one network port; a masks table containing filter information and a mask key; a rules table having corresponding rules to said filter information and being related to said mask table by said mask key; a pointers table containing boundary data related to said rules for corresponding filter information; and a fast filter processor coupled to said mask table, said rules table and said pointers table, and configured to perform at least one binary search for at least one rule related to a data packet received by said network device at said at least one network port, said binary search being limited based on said boundary data in said pointers table.