Patent ID: 7545810

Claim:
A method of switching transport protocol connection keys, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: in a transport protocol module configured to use a first key for signing messages associated with a transport protocol connection, configuring a second key for the transport protocol connection; receiving a first message associated with the transport protocol connection, wherein the first message includes a first signature; computing a first message digest and a second message digest for the first message, wherein the first message digest is based on the first key and the second message digest is based on the second key; and validating the first message if the first signature matches any one of the first message digest and the second message digest; when the first signature included in the first message matches the second message digest, re-configuring the transport protocol module to use the second key for signing messages associated with the transport protocol connection; sending a second message over the transport protocol connection, wherein the second message includes a second signature that is computed based on the second key.