51. The security appliance of claim 50 wherein the processor is further configured to: if the first hash value is not present in the EC cache table, compute an epsilon closure of the set of NFA states received; and add a new entry into the EC cache table, the new entry mapping the first hash value of the set of NFA states received to the epsilon closure computed of the set of NFA states received.
50. The security appliance of claim 49 wherein the processor is further configured to: if the first hash value is present in the EC cache table, set the stored set of NFA states mapped to the first hash value in the EC cache table as an epsilon closure of the set of NFA states received.