Patent ID: 8176545

Claim:
A method for validating a security service associated with packets communicated on a network, comprising: receiving a packet at a transport offload engine; decrypting and authenticating the packet utilizing the transport offload engine, the decrypting utilizing an Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) transformation; calculating a hash of a security service based on the packet, utilizing the transport offload engine; determining whether the packet is a SYN packet utilizing the transport offload engine; in response to a determination that the packet is a SYN packet: sending the SYN packet from the transport offload engine to a processor, sending the IPSec transformation from the transport offload engine to the processor, and sending the hash from the transport offload engine to the processor; performing IPSec policy checking of the SYN packet utilizing the processor; determining that the SYN packet and a connection related to the SYN packet are allowed based on the IPSec policy checking, utilizing the processor; in response to the determination that the SYN packet and the related connection are allowed, and prior to generating a SYN/ACK packet, generating a control block including the hash utilizing the transport offload engine, the control block for network socket management; generating the SYN/ACK packet based on the SYN packet, utilizing the transport offload engine; and sending the SYN/ACK packet utilizing the transport offload engine.