Patent ID: 8607301

Claim:
A method for providing secure communication among members in a virtual private network comprising: defining a security group, the security group comprising identification of two or more members to be enabled to securely communicate with one another, the two or more members being protected by two or more respective policy enforcement points; and upon request by a group member to communicate with other members of a security group, determining if the group member is authenticated using a virtual private network (VPN) authentication function; and if the group member is authenticated by the VPN authentication function, presenting the group member with a security association to enable the member to carry out secure communication within the group, the security association being provided by a network overlay including (i) a key authority point, with respect to the policy enforcement points, that is triggered upon the authentication of the member to distribute the security association to the policy enforcement point associated with the member, and (ii) a management and policy server, separate from the key authority point, that (a) maintains information related to security group, (b) generates and distribute at least one security policy to the key authority point, and (c) triggers the key authority point, upon the authentication of the member, to provide to the policy enforcement point associated with the member at least one encryption key.