A method and system for managing multiple firewall configurations are disclosed. The method uses a pointer on a packet object representing a packet to reference a configuration object representing a configuration of the firewall which is assigned to the packet. By using a pointer to link each packet entering a computer system to the most recent configuration, the method can maintain multiple configurations and enable the firewall processing modules to process each packet according to its assigned configuration even if new configurations are released during the transition of the packet through the system. A reference count is also used as a variable by the configuration object to track the number of packets assigned to the configuration. A corresponding system is also provided.