1. A method for heuristics-based adaptive protocol parsing, the method comprising: receiving, at a hardware communications interface, a message of a first protocol, wherein the first protocol defines a plurality of valid message formats, the message having a format; parsing the received message using a protocol tree for determining whether the format of the received message is one of the plurality of valid message formats, wherein parsing the receiving message using a protocol tree includes processing information elements (IEs) of the received message while traversing the protocol tree, wherein determining whether the format of the received message is one of the plurality of valid message formats includes determining whether the order of IEs in the received message corresponds to an extant path within the protocol tree; and while parsing the received message, using heuristics to modify the structure of the protocol tree in real time such that the protocol tree is optimized for processing observed message formats.