Patent ID: 7461253

Claim:
A method for mutual authentication of a first and a second node in a peer-to-peer network, the method comprising the steps of: sending a first authentication message to the second node containing information needed to authenticate the first node; receiving a second authentication message from the second node echoing at least some of the information transmitted in the first authentication message; determining responsive to the contents of the received second authentication message whether authentication is needed; deriving a pair-wise transient key (PTK) used for encryption of unicast traffic from a pair-wise master key created during authentication; sending an association message to the second node, the association message comprising both information needed by the second node to validate the PTK, and a group transient key (GTK) used by the first node in encrypting multicast or broadcast traffic; and receiving an association message from the second node, the association message comprising information needed by the first node to validate the PTK, and a GTK used by the second node, wherein the first authentication message comprises a nonce created by the first node and the second authentication message comprises a nonce created by the second node.