Patent ID: 7761702

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a packet from a sender at a data communication device, wherein the packet is to be multicast to a plurality of destinations; identifying a multicast security association related to the packet based, at least in part, on a data stream associated with the packet and security information shared between the data communications device and the plurality of destinations; in response to determining that the security association related to the packet is shared between the data communications device and the plurality of destinations: creating a secure packet by applying the security association to the packet using a group key that is shared between the data communications device and the plurality of destinations; replicating the secured packet into a plurality of replicated secured packets; for one of the replicated secured packets destined to a particular destination of a multicast group: appending, to that one of the replicated secured packets, a new header having a sender address location and a particular destination address location; transmitting that one of the replicated secured packets to the particular destination; in response to determining that the security association related to the packet is shared between the data communications device and a particular destination but not the plurality of destinations: for the particular destination: applying the security association to a copy of the packet using a pair-wise key that is shared between the data communications device and the particular destination to create a secured packet; appending, to the secured packet, a new header having a sender address location and a particular destination location; transmitting the secured packet to the particular destination, where the particular destination is a member of the multicast group; wherein the method is performed by the data communication device.