System and method for classifying network traffic

A system and method for classifying network traffic including: providing a framework of models configured to classify network traffic; determining, via a packet processing engine, whether the network traffic flow is encrypted; if the network traffic flow is encrypted: extracting, via the packet processing engine, encrypted flow attributes associated with a network traffic flow; deriving further flow attributes based on the extracted encrypted flow attributes; determining at least one model of the framework of models based on the derived flow attributes and extracted encrypted flow attributes; and classifying, via a traffic classification engine, the traffic flow as a category of traffic based on the at least one model; and if the network traffic flow is not encrypted: extracting non-encrypted flow attributes associated with a network traffic flow; classifying the traffic flow as a category of traffic based on the non-encrypted flow attributes.