Circuits and methods are provided for detecting, identifying and/or removing undesired content. According to one embodiment, a method for performing content scanning of content objects is provided. A content object that is to be scanned is stored by a general purpose processor to a system memory of the general purpose processor. Content scanning parameters associated with the content object are set up by the general purpose processor. Instructions from a signature memory of a co-processor that is coupled to the general purpose processor are read by the co-processor based on the content scanning parameters. The instructions contain op-codes of a first instruction type and op-codes of a second instruction type. Those of the instructions containing op-codes of the first instruction type are assigned by the co-processor to a first instruction pipe of multiple instruction pipes of the co-processor for execution. An instruction of the assigned instructions containing op-codes of the first instruction type is executed by the first instruction pipe including accessing a portion of the content object from the system memory.