1. A method for detecting network-based applications, the method comprising: analyzing network traffic sent to or received from a network application to identify one or more data points associated with the network traffic that are characteristic of the network-based application; receiving, at least a first computer system in a set of computer systems, information describing the identified one or more data points; associating, with one or more processors associated with the at least a first computer system in the set of computer systems, the information describing the identified one or more data points with the network-based application; storing, with the one or more processors associated with the at least a first computer system in the set of computer systems, information about the network-based application, the information describing the identified one or more data points, and information associating the information describing the identified one or more data points and the network-based application in a database; generating, with one or more processors associated with at least a second computer system in the set of computer systems, a set of rules in response to accessing the database that configure an application detection engine to identify the network-based application from network traffic, each rule in the set of rules specifying at least one of the one or more identified data points and one or more conditions when data in the network traffic associated with the at least one of the one or more identified data points satisfies the rule; and communicating the set of rules to an application detection device, wherein at least application detection functionality of the application detection device is dynamically updated to support detection of the network-based application based on the communicated set of rules.