Patent ID: 8417868
Filing Date: 2013-04-09
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: advertising cryptographic offload capabilities on a partitioned platform having at least a dedicated partition and a user partition, wherein the advertising is performed by an offload driver in the dedicated partition; offloading cryptographic tasks from the user partition to the offload driver in the dedicated partition; transmitting unencrypted outgoing packets from the user partition to the dedicated partition; performing encryption on the unencrypted outgoing packets to generate outgoing encrypted packets; transmitting the outgoing encrypted packets from the dedicated partition on the partitioned platform to a remote recipient; receiving incoming encrypted packets in the dedicated partition on the partitioned platform from a remote sender; performing decryption on the incoming encrypted packets to generate unencrypted incoming packets; and transmitting the unencrypted incoming packets from the dedicated partition to the user partition, wherein said advertising comprises, in response to a query from a virtual private network (VPN) driver in the user partition as to available capabilities of a network interface card driver, intercepting the query and, if the offload driver is capable of supporting cryptographic operations, indicating to the user partition that the offload driver is capable of supporting the cryptographic operations.