Patent ID: 7877601

Claim:
A method comprising: determining whether a packet is to be sent from a first network node to a second network node, wherein the determining whether the packet is to be sent is performed at the first network node, the first network node is configured to support a network security technique, and the second network node is not configured to support the network security technique; in response to determining that the packet is to be sent from the first network node to the second network node, determining whether the packet will traverse a network node capable of processing packet security information after traversing the second network node, wherein the determining whether the packet will traverse is performed at the first network node; including packet security information with the packet, if it is determined that the packet will traverse the network node capable of processing packet security information after traversing the second network node, wherein the packet security information is associated with the network security technique; and forwarding the packet to the second network node, wherein the forwarding the packet is performed regardless of whether the packet will traverse the network node capable of processing packet security information.