Patent ID: 7826614

Claim:
A network interface system for interfacing a host system with a network to provide outgoing data from the host system to the network and to provide incoming data from the network to the host system, the network interface system comprising: a bus interface system adapted to be coupled with a host bus in the host system and transfer data between the network interface system and the host system; a media access control system adapted to be coupled with the network and to transfer data between the network interface system and the network; a memory system coupled with the bus interface system and the media access control system, the memory system being adapted to store incoming and outgoing data being transferred between the network and the host system; a security system coupled with the memory system, the security system being adapted to selectively encrypt outgoing data and to selectively decrypt incoming data; and a descriptor management system coupled with the bus interface system and the security system, the descriptor management system being adapted to obtain initialization vector information from the host system and to provide the initialization vector information to the security system wherein the security system is adapted to employ an initial random data string from the outgoing data to begin encryption before security association information has been retrieved by the security system.