Patent ID: 7733906

Claim:
A system comprising: a detection module, stored in a non-transitory memory, executed by a processor to automatically detect a MAC address of an equipment interface that is attached to a network port used to connect to a local area network, and determine whether the detected MAC address matches an expected value for said local area network and if so then lock the network port with said detected MAC address and if not then check whether all members of an equipment community that are authorized to connect to the local area network have been detected and authenticated and if all members of the equipment community that are authorized to connect to the local area network have been detected and authenticated then track the equipment interface as a violator, by writing the violator's credentials to a database for subsequent usage, the detection module to store a credential, for each authorized equipment interface that is authorized to connect to the local area network and that has been authenticated, which contains a lower layer address, a network layer address, a domain name, and a network port identifier that identifies a network port to which the authorized equipment interface is currently attached.