1. An apparatus to facilitate network security and traffic monitoring for input network traffic, comprising: a plurality of microcode controlled state machines, each of said plurality of microcode controlled state machines including a computation kernel operating in accordance with microcode stored in an associated control store; a distribution circuit to route individual network traffic segments to said plurality of microcode controlled state machines, such that each individual microcode controlled state machine processes a network traffic segment in accordance with microcode stored in an associated control store to produce a processed individual network traffic segment; an aggregation circuit to route processed individual network traffic segments from said plurality of microcode controlled state machines in accordance with an output routing strategy and thereby produce output network traffic corresponding to said input network traffic.