A system and computerized method for generating an improved cyber-security rule ordering for cyber-security threat detection or post-processing activities conducted by a rules-based cyber-security engine deployed within a network device is described. Herein, historical metadata associated with analytics conducted on incoming data by a rule-based cyber-security engine and in accordance with a plurality of rules is described. These rules are arranged in a first ordered rule sequence. The historical metadata is analyzed to determine one or more salient rules from the plurality of rules. The plurality of rules are reprioritized by at least rearranging an order to a second ordered rule sequence with the one or more salient rules being positioned toward a start of the second ordered rule sequence. Thereafter, the rule-based cyber-security engine operates in accordance with the reprioritized rule set that is arranged in the second ordered rule sequence to achieve improved performance.