Processing of Payload Content with Parallel Validation

An example embodiment may involve a network interface configured to transmit and receive frames. The embodiment may also involve a network protocol stack configured to: (i) perform encapsulation of outgoing messages into outgoing frames for transmission by way of the network interface, or (ii) perform decapsulation of incoming frames received by way of the network interface into incoming messages. The embodiment may also involve a parsing and validation module configured to: (i) receive representations of the incoming or the outgoing messages, and (ii) perform one or more validation checks on the representations, wherein the representations define transactions that are functionally equivalent to corresponding transactions that are defined by the messages, wherein the one or more validation checks are performed in parallel to performance of the encapsulation or decapsulation, and wherein a representation of a message failing the one or more validation checks causes the message to be discarded.