A physical layer device includes memory, a memory control module, and a physical layer module. The memory control module is configured to control access to the memory. The physical layer module is configured to store packets in the memory via the memory control module. The physical layer module includes an interface configured to receive the packets from a network device via a network and an interface bus. The interface bus includes at least one of a control module and a regular expression module. The at least one of the control module and the regular expression module is configured to inspect the packets to determine a security level of the packets. A network interface is configured to, based on the security level, provide the packets to a device separate from the physical layer device.